AUWU Condemns Government's Roadmap To Poverty
Cutting the Covid Disaster Payment is a one-way ticket to poverty for millions of Australians. Instead of providing support during the Delta wave, the LNP is hell-bent on starving us.
Today, the government has, again, chosen to inflict immeasurable harm on poor Australians.
Instead of ensuring disadvantaged Australians a safe pathway out of lockdown, the government has announced that it plans to wind down COVID disaster payments once states and territories reach 70% vaccinated — cutting them permanently once they reach the 80% target.
This disastrous decision comes a day after the Disability Royal Commission called the vaccine rollout to people with a disability “seriously deficient” and on the day Sydney and Victoria recorded 863 and 950 new COVID cases respectively.
Throughout the Delta wave, the government has chosen to starve the poor, disabled and unemployed, by excluding most of us from the Disaster Payment. Today, they’ve reaffirmed that they continue to see our lives as completely expendable.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg this morning stated “the winding down of the Covid disaster payment will provide businesses and households with the certainty they need to plan for the future.”
This is absolute bullshit.
The only “certainty” this provides many low-income households is that a life of grim poverty is definitely in their immediate future. For poor Australians, the only “planning” will be around where savings can be made, and how many meals a week will have to sacrificed to make rent and pay bills, when they’re denied the support they need to survive.
Current estimates of when states will reach the 70% and 80% marks are just that: estimates. This means yet more stress and anxiety for over 1.7 million people — nearly one in five working-age people — across Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT, who are on disaster payments and wondering when they will be pushed off the cliff.
To be clear: the current program of disaster payments was flawed from the start, designed to deliberately exclude the most vulnerable from assistance. The government proved last year that lifting people above the poverty line is absolutely possible — so this decision was nothing more than pure, needless cruelty dressed up as “sensible” austerity.
The Opposition cannot let the government get away with this malice: Anthony Albanese and his Labor Party must get off the bench and start loudly demanding the government support us. It’s time for all sides of politics to move away from a punitive, piecemeal approach and get serious about tackling entrenched poverty in this country.
Once again, we demand that the government permanently raises all income support payments above the Henderson Poverty Line. Stop harming and killing Australia’s most vulnerable — give us some security, dignity and some hope for a decent life.
Media contacts: Jez Heywood - 0421 283 037, Jeremy Poxon - 0404 089 575 / media at auwu.org.au
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