Budget ignores Australia’s most vulnerable yet again
Josh Frydenberg’s final budget is just as disappointing as all that came before it.
On Tuesday night, Josh Frydenberg delivered a curiously limp pre-election budget heavily centred around talking about the cost of living, yet delivered little that would actually address the cost of living.
This short-sighted and ineffectual budget from a short-sighted and ineffectual government also seems to think that the cost of living is solely a financial matter and ignores the psychological and physical cost of living.
We are now two years into a global pandemic. The effects of climate change are currently pummelling New South Wales and Queensland. Unemployment and underemployment is rife. The Henderson Poverty line has jumped by $8 a day in the past 12 months. And the best Josh Frydenberg can do is a one-off $250 payment?
While we welcome an additional $1.3 billion to tackle domestic violence, this ignores the fact that women on welfare are unable to leave unsafe situations due to a lack of resources thanks to the partner income test.
Changes to the PBS safety net threshold and $108 million for public dental health services are also welcomed, but this is a drop in the ocean when we are seeing vulnerable people developing scurvy and crowdfunding for dental treatment due to poverty.
Similarly, while we welcome increased mental health funding, this again does not address the effect that poverty and inequality has on people’s mental health.
The list is endless: increased funding for apprenticeships and training, but nothing for the higher education sector the government sacrificed during the pandemic; cuts to funding for the arts, another victim of the pandemic; a cut in the fuel excise that only benefits people who can already afford to run a car; cuts to the Services Australia workforce when, on top of their usual workload, hundreds of thousands are currently relying on Services Australia for disaster relief
In the 8 years this government has held power, they have done nothing meaningful to genuinely support and empower unemployed individuals, lift them out of poverty and help them into sustainable, long-term employment.
We have stated time and time again that this government proved, with the coronavirus supplement, that poverty is a political choice. They can end poverty whenever they want. And once again they choose not to.
Every year the government has a chance to make real change; every year they fail.
Media contact: Jez Heywood / media at auwu.org.au
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