Media Release
The powerful NSW Labor Administrative Committee will this week consider a motion to request the Federal Labor Government to raise the rate of Jobseeker.
Chris Haviland, former Federal Labor MP and Administrative Committee member will move the motion, which asks the Government to increase Jobseeker in line with the recommendation of the Government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.
Mr Haviland is one of over 300 current and former MPs, community leaders and advocates who have signed a letter to the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, from the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) calling for the increase.
“The current rate of Jobseeker is woefully inadequate. It is less than $50 a day,” Mr Haviland said.
“The Howard Government broke the nexus between the rates of unemployment benefits and the Age Pension, It is way past time this was restored.”
Mr Haviland rejected arguments that there was no room in the Budget for any increase in Jobseeker.
“Budgets are about choices, about priorities. If a Labor Government can’t prioritise a raise in Jobseeker ahead of yet another (Stage 3) tax cut for the wealthy, then there is something wrong. Not to mention the obscene expenditure on nuclear submarines!”
“No-one held back, no-one left behind. That was the Prime Minister’s promise. Does that not include those on Jobseeker, the most vulnerable in our community?”
The motion to be presented to the Administrative Committee this Friday reads as follows:
“The NSW Administrative Committee welcomes the recommendations of the report of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, in particular the recommendation that the rate of Jobseeker be increased to at least 90% of the Age Pension.
“The rate of the Jobseeker allowance has been woefully inadequate for many years, dating back to when the mean-spirited Howard Government broke the historical nexus between unemployment benefits and the Age Pension. It is below the poverty line and impossible to live on.
“According, NSW Labor requests that the Federal Labor Government increase the rate of Jobseeker by the amount recommended by the aforementioned Committee, and that this be announced in the forthcoming Federal Budget.
“That this resolution be conveyed to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer as a matter of urgency.”
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To all of you who voted ALP 1, please remember this and next election put them just above the Coalition. Then, perhaps, we may get a progressive government, one which won’t continue pursuing LNP policies.
Hear, hear, Hotspringer
As I have said on thousands of occasions on our common social media landscape, I want to see #DoubleJobseeker and Double for all other social security payments.
Puney little promises
for incremental increases
will be treated as diseases
Imagine what a boost it would be for the economy (and a person’s sense of worth) if those on low incomes had some money to spend on needs they cannot currently afford.
It makes sense to lift them above the poverty line.
“It makes sense to lift them above the poverty line.” In what alternative universe do you live in? We need to teach these outsiders what it means to be poor so they wont do it again.
we just cant allow 2000 plus years of christian judeism evaporate. They either join our clan or just die. If these lazy bastards cant see we are trying to help them, they dont deserve our help.