Working Families Incomes

Australians worse off under welfare law

If Parliament passes the Budget changes to welfare, at least 300,000 Australians could be worse off after July 2006, the Australian Council of Social Service said today, while launching a new online campaign to make the legislation fairer.

"This welfare legislation is grossly unfair - at least 150,000 people who apply for payments after July 2006 plus their 150,000 children will have less money to live on.* If they apply after July next year, a single parent will be around $20 a week worse off. A person with a disability will have about $40 less per week," said ACOSS President Andrew McCallum. "ACOSS, on its website www.acoss.org.au, will assist all Australians to send a letter to their Member of Parliament calling them not make the incomes of the poorest Australians lower."

ACOSS estimates at least 60,000 people with disabilities assessed as able to work 15 hours or more a week and 90,000 single parents with school-age children who would have been entitled to pension payments under the current system will instead be put onto unemployment payments over three years after July 2006. Existing recipients of pension payments will not be affected unless they go off pensions and reapply under the new rules.

"These figures are based on the assumption that people on pensions before July 2006 will have their payments remain the same - they will be "grandfathered". If there is no grandfathering for parents who either move onto partnered payments or into work for a short time, the number of those affected will increase by around 50,000."

"Single parents already have difficulties raising children on payments and people with disabilities struggle to pay health bills - they will be under even more pressure if they are on lower payments," said McCallum. "They will also be subject to stricter activity tests and the possibility if they do not meet activity requirements that they could lose their payments for eight weeks."

"ACOSS supports getting people back into work but financial penalties will not help them or the Government reach this goal. ACOSS believes many Australians would agree that we have to take a more compassionate view towards people in difficult circumstances."

ACOSS's new website www.acoss.org.au features a tool whereby people can enter their postcode and this generates a letter to their local Member of Parliament. The letter is calling for politicians to argue against making more Australians live on less money and instead to invest in better help to transition jobless people back into the workforce.

• These figures are calculated assuming the ratio of new claims for PPS granted annually for existing recipients (parents with school age children only) is 28.5%. They assume the proportion of 'new grants' grandfathered, over the first three years is 36.3%; new claims by the same people claiming more than once, over the first three years is 16.7%; applicants disqualified from PPS who enter DSP is 12%; applicants disqualified from PPS who enter Carer Payment is 12%. These assumptions are based on publicly available data on people in receipt of Parenting Payment (Single), and flows on and off this payment, in the recent past.

© 2001 Community & Public Sector Union - State Public Services Federation (CPSU-SPSF) - National Office

http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/latest_news/general/20050726_welfarechange.html
Last Modified: 15 Nov 2005