The ACT Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS) wants the next federal government to increase the rate of JobSeeker, Youth Allowance, and other income support payments to at least $70 a day, further supplement the incomes of people with disability and single parents, and index to the consumer price index and wages.
Currently, Dr Emma Campbell, CEO of ACTCOSS, stated, these welfare payments are below the poverty line, forcing a tenth of Canberrans – nearly 37,000 people (including 9,000 children) – to live in poverty.
“This is unacceptable, and it is the low rate of income support that drives that level of poverty,” she said.
Last week, ACTCOSS published its 2022 Cost of Living Report, stating that poverty in the ACT was worse now than before the pandemic, and would deteriorate further unless the government acted.
The Greens have pledged to introduce a liveable income guarantee; raise all income support payment rates above the poverty line to at least $88 a day; and remove mutual obligations “that make people’s lives an absolute misery and make people have to jump through flaming hoops in order to get the scraps from the table,” Tim Hollo, Greens candidate for Canberra, said.
“Income support needs to be guaranteed,” Dr Tjanara Goreng Goreng, Greens Senate candidate, told CW. “It needs to be a level that everybody in Australia can afford the necessities of life: housing, food, pay your bills, pay your costs, whether it’s medical or educational.”
Labor will not commit to increase the JobSeeker payment, and dropped an independent review into the rate promised in 2019, the Guardian reported last month.
Independent Senate candidate Kim Rubenstein supports raising payments to at least $70 a day.
David Pocock, Independent Senate candidate, said that ACTCOSS’s election priorities reflected the needs of our community, especially the 38,000 Canberrans living below the poverty line, including 9,000 children.
“We need to do better,” Mr Pocock said.
“The JobSeeker Coronavirus Supplement lifted hundreds of thousands of people nationally out of poverty, and we need to permanently lift the rate.
“Research shows increases to support payments not only benefit the most vulnerable in our community, but the money also flows back into the economy.”
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