THE Federal Government’s new Welfare to Work laws will see many people with disabilities, single mothers and their children pushed into greater poverty and indignity, the St Vincent de Paul Society said.
July 1 marked the implementation of the new Welfare to Work legislation.
“We at Vinnies have marked this day with a sad heart,” the society’s national council chief executive officer Dr John Falzon said.
He said St Vincent de Paul Society members felt a deep sense of compassion for people who would suffer under the new laws.
“We cannot understand why the people we assist should be further oppressed.
“The point of good government is to address our nation’s problems, not to create new ones.
“To expose sole parents and people with disabilities to the threat of eight weeks’ payment suspension is an example of the Government’s ‘sticks rather than carrots’ approach.
“To then refer some of these victims of breaching to charities is a further means of humiliating them rather than empowering them. We will not participate in this ill-conceived program.”
Under the new laws unemployed people who refuse three job offers in a year could be penalised by losing their payments for two months.
Catholic Social Services Australia executive director Frank Quinlan said the new rules could have disastrous consequences.
“We think this is a very dangerous strategy because we know that suspending people’s payments really hurts people,” he told the ABC.
Mr Quinlan said people should be encouraged to enter the workforce, not threatened.
