AUWU Speaks #5: an open letter to Anthony Albanese
AUWU members under lockdown are calling on the leader of the Opposition to join our fight for more income support.
In response to Labor’s decision in the senate on August 5th to vote against extra pandemic support, AUWU members are expressing heartfelt anger, pleading with the Labor party to stand up for us in this time of crisis, and demand the government return the full COVID supplement of $550 per fortnight.
Dear Anthony,
When 2020 started, I had plans to travel internationally, seeking markets for my fledgling businesses. I’d taken a voluntary redundancy from an executive role at university a few months before, and was investing some of the money in creating my own job—jobs, really. I planned to make money in one business, providing high-end services to universities, while I built the other business, which needed a few years to achieve profitability. I was booked to speak at events, I had appointments with clients. I had just turned 50, I was studying a PhD and I had a plan.
Then COVID-19 hit. The first two months were surreal, as my mother-in-law was dying of leukaemia and we were caring for her at home. Her large, loving family was suddenly locked down all over the world. Her funeral in May was attended by 8 people. In between all that, I cancelled all my plans overseas. I pushed ahead with my efforts to gain work in higher education but the sector was scrambling to assess the impact of the lucrative overseas market suddenly disappearing, and somehow work out how to deliver classes in lockdown. My partner’s business, a coffee van, was completely wiped out for months, because no one could gather. Our little nest egg trickled away.
Reluctantly, we applied for Jobseeker as sole traders at the end of May. We knew that the government had accused welfare recipients of fake debts & we knew the bureaucracy of welfare was punishing and cruel. We didn’t want to be part of that. But there was no choice: the pandemic is global. With two of us on Jobseeker with the COVID supplement, we had a combined income of $2068 a fortnight -- close to the average wage for a full-time employed Australian. On that amount of money, I could keep paying casuals to help me in my little business, and pay for medical appointments that aren’t covered by Medicare. I could afford to buy gifts for loved ones.
I was applying for jobs, but the federal government had made the baffling decision to deny JobKeeper to Higher Education, so there was lots of competition. One job had 470 applicants, even though you needed a postgraduate qualification to apply. 17,000 Australians lost their jobs in a sector that was already struggling. I rarely even got replies to my applications.
The government’s largesse didn’t last: they announced the supplements would end, although the pandemic continued. We knew that we would not be able to manage our obligations (debt, rent, bills) on the reduced amount, much less try to get our businesses up and going. But we were already applying for jobs and trying to earn income from a business: what else could we do?
My job search was disrupted when I got offered an appointment for breast reconstruction. I had been waiting for 3 years -- 18 months longer than the 12-18 month target for the system. TRAM-flap reconstruction is a major surgery that requires more than a week in hospital and 3 months of recovery. Should I miss my chance to focus on trying to get a job? We decided no; who knew when it would next be my turn, and what our circumstances would be.
I assumed I’d be able to keep working from home on the businesses, or applying for jobs, during recovery but that proved wrong. Even in February of this year, sitting up in an office chair for any length of time was exhausting and painful. I still suffer the after effects of the chemotherapy and radiation, including brain fog, fatigue and joint pain.
I have wondered if I am actually disabled now. It is a rare week that I can work every day, a flare-up of one kind or another inevitably forces me to bed, or to a medical practitioner. Most of my spare cash has gone on Allied Health treatments after the Medicare entitlement runs out. As a former executive renowned for my energy, this is a mind-fuck. Whether I am disabled or not, it doesn’t matter: mutual obligations have returned and I must seek employment or lose the little support I am now entitled to, which calculates out at $16,000 a year. Anthony, you claimed more than that in car costs and travel allowance in 2019.
Because we have had no money, I tried to ignore a dental problem. As these things do, it became a crisis. There was such a massive infection around my tooth that has eaten the jaw away. I had EIGHT rounds of antibiotics to reduce the infection so a specialist could extract it. I raised the $500 by selling some Bank of Queensland shares I’d bought with my payout: my first and probably only venture into an investment other than Super.
Specialists recommend that I have treatment to prevent me losing the teeth around it and becoming unable to chew food, but that will cost me $3500. That’s 3 months’ worth of JobSeeker payments, so all I have to do now is figure out how to living on nothing for 3 months!
I don’t know if you can empathise with lack anymore, Mr Albanese. Your willingness to be cruel to Australians who cannot help their circumstances suggests you, like so many leaders, have forgotten compassion in your drive for power.
Right now, your choices as leader are making my life smaller and more miserable. I am a highly qualified and experienced professional who, even with reduced capacity, could make a great contribution to Australia. Instead I am treated like a criminal (arguably by actual criminals). I look to the Opposition Party for hope, and you have turned away.
I would very much like an explanation as to why you, as leader of the Opposition, choose to side with the cruelest, most incompetent administration in Australia’s history, and punish me for the pandemic instead of helping me to survive, or even thrive.
Regards,
Robyn Evans
Media contact: 0404 089 575 / media at auwu.org.au