AUWU Canberra’s #PayPeopleToStayHome petition demanding financial support from the ACT government gains over 2/3s of required signatures in just a few days
Scott Morrison has abandoned us in a crisis. The Barr government must show compassion, and urgently provide COVID disaster payments.
The AUWU Canberra branch launched a petition on Wednesday night (08/09/21) pushing the Barr government to financially assist Canberrans who are excluded from territory and federal support. In just a few short days, the petition has already reached 350 of the 500 signatures required for the petition to be referred to a committee of the Legislative Assembly for consideration.
The petition calls on the ACT government to provide urgent, ongoing disaster payments of $200/week, back paid to 12 August, to support residents on federal social security.
At Friday’s press conference, in response to questions about the petition, Chief Minister Barr listed various payments and support programs operating in the ACT, claiming 12 separate programs existed in total.
Unfortunately, the information around eligibility is so complicated that even the most senior public servant in the ACT was mistaken about the accessibility and nature of these payments. Our members are not remotely well supported by any of these programs.
Canberrans who receive federal income support are not eligible for most of the programs that the Chief Minister listed, with the most significant exception being the utilities concession. A previous incarnation of the program was found to pay out an average of just $300, and the current maximum figure of $750-800 (yearly) spouted by Barr barely makes a dent in the $40 per day deficit that most unemployed people are missing in their social security payments.
There are no ongoing relief payments available to us.
The programs listed by Chief Minister Barr do nothing to prevent the systemic and ongoing poverty ingrained in our community by policy decisions at all levels of government.
Media contact: 0407 509 444 / canberra@auwu.org.au
Pandemics are natural, poverty is government failure
Currently, those who are living below the poverty line on income support have been excluded from the COVID disaster supplement given to people who have lost work, as well as test-and-isolate payments.
Direct relief to tenants struggling in poverty is completely absent. The rental subsidy is a tax concession to landlords, rather than a direct payment to tenants. Those struggling to meet their rents must meet serious bureaucratic hurdles to prove they have been impacted by COVID-19 to avoid eviction, with people at the behest of their landlords for protection.
A report in the Guardian this week revealed the link between poverty and poor mental health is inextricable and severe, with the ABC reporting on the same day that those living in the poorest areas of Australia are 2.5 to 4 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those who live in the wealthiest areas of Australia.
We are glad that the ‘experts’ have caught up to what the real experts who struggle to get by on low incomes have been saying for years: Australia’s brutal welfare system destroys our mental health and kills us.
We hope that previously vague calls for increased mental health and physical wellbeing will now consistently be accompanied by calls to raise the rates of welfare payments above the Henderson Poverty Line (currently $83/day).
Chief Minister Barr recently boasted that the territory’s business support package would cost ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars. The ACT government seems more willing to spend money on supporting business, rather than directly supporting vulnerable Canberran workers.
Those in poverty are ignored
We have begged the Morrison government to reinstate the COVID supplement. Our comrades elsewhere in the country have held car convoys and protest actions to force Scott Morrison to listen to reason. He simply refuses.
Alongside other local organisations, AUWU Canberra held community forums and protests outside Parliament House during our week of action in March this year, and again in Budget Week, calling for income support to be permanently raised to the Henderson Poverty Line.
With the ACT in lockdown without a definite end date, this has become even more urgent. We are asking the Territory government to step up and protect Canberrans to ensure this crisis does not become a disaster. Barr’s government has a unique opportunity to lead the nation, and to support those forced to live in poverty.
We ask that fellow Canberrans stand in solidarity with us by signing our petition and sharing it with their networks, and by calling their local MLAs to encourage them to support it too.