Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News Australia

Australia’s biggest charities including Vinnies force government to soften welfare payment cuts

byMark Bowling
14 September 2016 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA

Budget cuts: The Australian Federal Government ditched a proposal to cut $4 from the Newstart allowance.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
budget cuts
Budget cuts: The Australian Federal Government ditched a proposal to cut $4 from the Newstart allowance. Photo: Flickr, Creative Commons Licence/NoHoDamon

FOUR dollars. It’s the cost of a cup of coffee.

For some of our most disadvantaged, with an empty wallet, bills to pay and two or three days until the next benefits payment, it can be the tipping point.

And yet, until a last-minute turnaround yesterday, the Federal Government was proposing to cut more than $4 a week from the Newstart allowance, which is paid to Australia’s most vulnerable jobseekers.

At just $38 a day, the Newstart allowance equates to 39 per cent of the minimum wage. 

The Government proposed cutting the Energy Supplement as part of its $6 billion dollars of saving measures in the so-called omnibus bill. 

Scrapping the supplement meant cutting $4 a week for new social security claimants, over time, reducing the incomes of 2.2 million people on the lowest incomes, including pensioners, sole parents, single-income families and Newstart recipients.

In a last-minute reprieve the Coalition and the Labor Opposition worked through a compromise plan to soften the contentious cuts – in particular from Newstart – with an undertaking to find savings elsewhere even if the cuts still come from within the welfare and social services sector.

“I don’t think we should be going after the poorest people in the community to fund savings,” Labor frontbencher Stephen Jones told ABC Radio’s RN.

It took pressure from five of Australia’s biggest charities to force the political change of heart.

St Vincent de Paul Society, Mission Australia, Catholic Social Services, Anglicare and the Salvation Army joined forces to call out the “injustice” if the Turnbull Government and Labor supported the cut.

Related Stories

One million Australians expected to be unemployed by December, government warns

New study shows Archdiocese of Brisbane contributes $2.5 billion to Queensland economy

HomeBuilder package misses the mark​ for the poor, Vinnies says

“We have been lobbying the Government about the inadequacy of Newstart for years …,” Mission Australia chief executive officer Catherine Yeomans said.

“As an organisation that supports the most vulnerable, we know that people on Newstart are already struggling to make ends meet; with exorbitant rents and rising cost of living many of them are already on the verge of homelessness. 

“We need a fair and equitable Australia.

“Those on the lowest incomes should not be asked to shoulder the burden of budget repair.”

Families who barely scrape through: Meet the parents who are desperate for the $4 almost cut from the Newstart Allowance

Catholic Social Services Australia chief executive officer Marcelle Mogg said the rate of poverty was growing, with an estimated 2.5 million people or 13.9 per cent of all people living below the internationally accepted poverty line.

“The current level of welfare payments to individuals and families is inadequate and is set and adjusted by the Government based on budgetary priorities rather than being evidenced based,” she said.

St Vincent de Paul Society National Council chief executive Dr John Falzon said it was unconscionable that the government intended cutting unemployment benefits, which were already at razor-thin levels, while at the same time defending generous tax concessions and delivering tax cuts to companies and those on higher incomes.

“You don’t help people into a job by forcing them deeper into poverty,” he said.

“Social security payments are shamefully low, and slashing these payments further will only compound the poverty and desperation of people already living well below the poverty line.”

ACOSS chief executive Dr Cassandra Goldie said: “Four dollars a week doesn’t sound like a lot to some but when you are living below the poverty line it could mean the difference between being able to put food on the table and going without.”

KPMG recently urged the government to raise the dole by $50 a week and the Business Council of Australia has said Newstart “no longer meets a reasonable community standard of adequacy”.

Australia’s Catholic Bishops have welcomed the government’s decision to work with other parties to drop the cuts, but after seeing a possibility of burdening Australia’s vulnerable, would work “to eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor”.

President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Denis Hart, said the Catholic Bishops are concerned about growing income inequality in Australia and its impacts on poor and disadvantaged communities. 

“Cutting payments to the most vulnerable families and individuals in our community when their payments are already inadequate to meet their living costs, was a very concerning initiative,” Archbishop Hart said.

Bishop Hart said savings needed should not place a heavier burden on society’s most vulnerable.

 “Australia is in danger of allowing the economy to become a kind of false god to which even human beings have to be sacrificed,” he said.

By Mark Bowling

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Wagga priest originally from Brisbane honours his bishop

Next Post

Meet the parents who need that $4 the government almost cut from the Newstart Allowance

Mark Bowling

Mark is the joint winner of the Australian Variety Club 2000 Heart Award for his radio news reporting in East Timor, and has also won a Walkley award, Australia’s most-respected journalism award. Mark is the author of ‘Running Amok’ that chronicles his time as a foreign correspondent juggling news deadlines and the demands of being a husband and father. Mark is married with four children.

Related Posts

Australia

One million Australians expected to be unemployed by December, government warns

31 July 2020
Cathy Uechrtritz
News

New study shows Archdiocese of Brisbane contributes $2.5 billion to Queensland economy

15 July 2020
Australia

HomeBuilder package misses the mark​ for the poor, Vinnies says

12 June 2020
Next Post
Budget cuts

Meet the parents who need that $4 the government almost cut from the Newstart Allowance

protesters

Catholics were reading the leaked Nauru Files in public when the Senate proposed an Inquiry into the document

Catholic media

There's a problem when God's people don't support Catholic media

Popular News

  • Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

    Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Hearts ‘fused’ together living their vocation

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition
QLD

Helping stroke survivors earns Ozcare volunteer national recognition

by Staff writers
20 May 2022
0

SURVIVING a stroke has transformed Lewis Hoffman and the lives of those he selflessly helps as a...

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

Br Alan Moss remembered for a life of faith and learning

19 May 2022
Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022
Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022
Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

18 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping