Permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee welcome, but government must establish poverty measure
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) Media Release
ACOSS welcomes the Senate’s passage of legislation to create a permanent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, but says the Federal Government must include people on low incomes in policy making and establish a national definition of poverty.
ACOSS Acting CEO Edwina MacDonald says: “ACOSS welcomes the Albanese Government establishing a permanent, independent, legislated committee to advise it and future governments on adequacy of incomes for people on the lowest incomes.
“ACOSS also welcomes the Senate’s amendments that bolster the committee’s independence and require publication of the report two weeks ahead of the budget. We thank members of the crossbench and Greens who proposed and supported amendments to improve the Bill, including Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Andrew Wilkie, David Pocock, Janet Rice, and Tammy Tyrrell.”
ACOSS continues to urge the government to establish a national definition of poverty, in line with its obligations under the UN Sustainable Development Goals requiring signatories to halve poverty by 2030. The government must also include people directly affected in decision making.
“Putting poverty reduction at the centre of the committee’s work, and ensuring people can have input into policies that affect them, is essential if the government is serious about curbing poverty”, Ms MacDonald said.
“It is also crucial that the government act on its interim advisory committee’s priority recommendation to substantially increase income support payments including Jobseeker and Youth Allowance. ACOSS continues to call for payments to be lifted to at least $78 a day so people can afford the basics of life.”
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3 comments
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Win Jeavons
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New England Cocky
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Clakka
Return to home pageI go further : Centrelink must be dismantled completely and rapidly replaced with a system that understands how to function without the damage to the human spirit it inflicts on the vulnerable and dependent it deals so harshly and inflexibly with . It MUST NOT be a privatised institution with its culture of profit and contempt . It MUST be more prepared to work face to face, relying less on algorithmic use of computers for those who find the impersonality overwhelming .
It often acts as if the old and the homeless gave no right to exist , an intolerable attitude !
Australia has suffered about 20 years of social & political stagnation thanks initially to Little Johnnie Howard and his sycophantic followers RAbbott, Turdball & Scummo the Incompetent. The implementation of LIASRBRAL$ ”economic policy” has done nothing to improve the best interests of Australian voters during that time, but has enriched government contractors, foreign owned corporations, especially miners, and the American sub building industry with the USUKA debacle.
Never let it be said that the LIARBRAL$ are the best managers of the Australian economy because their track record for the past nine (9) years has only produced huge financial deficits.
Sadly, I note that any nation that has the USA (United States of Apartheid) as an ally & armaments supplier has no need for any other enemy.
Capitalism may be very efficient at moving wealth around, but a notable aspect of ‘suicide’ capitalism, is as Marx observed, that it will fail because of the affects of class.
We have seen this play out across the globe, in particular, America and the UK, where class virtually equates to gangsterism, The elite and powerful do not want to loosen their grip as the wealth moves upward and they resort to their sieges in increasing fear. They won’t regulate to achieve equity for all, preferring ‘culture wars’, so economies are wrecked, and social cohesion is unglued, giving rise to increasing civil unrest suppressed by increasing surveillance and police-state gangsterism. They are lunatics that defy the realities of demand and supply opting for expansionism and systematic theft – of course ultimately there will be nothing left to steal, and there will be no demand – and then they’ll be eating themselves.
Even the autocrats tried it. Putin’s Russia turned it to kleptocracy via oligarchs controlled by novichok and sons murdered on the battlefield. Xi’s China implemented it to great initial success until it over-serviced itself, and the vast populace decided it didn’t want to play – the young lying flat and the old wanting to return to the farm. Oh no! Then yet again, in the same old mode, the only way to become un-hung is the devil of expansionism.
Of course, lunatic aspiration knowing no bounds, they will globalize via imperialist take-overs, buy-outs, consolidations and monopolizations, and if that doesn’t work, militarization and industrialized mass-murder. Or possibly all those things at the same time.
The trouble with the rich and powerful, and politicians alike, they may start out with great ideas and skills, but most often get trapped by their own success, and get drawn into hubris and obsession, focused on themselves and their m.o., deluded as to the rest of the world. They become the masters of wanton accumulation and waste, peddlers of bling.
Such economic and environmental vandalism is a hugely expensive business. And to leverage it, the elite aspirational lunatics ensure there is no manumission and a constancy of fear instilled in those from whom they steal and leech their succor.
Although, absent their lunacy, given that innately everyone likes to work, contribute and strive for success, the world could easily progress with the inclusion of a UBI and / or negative income tax system. Perhaps they could even be made to do business like the Mondragons.