Advance Australia Fair - Building Sustainability, Justice and Peace
Opening plenary - Challenging the neo-liberal danger
Saturday 30th July 2005
Back to conference program
Beverly Kliger
Acting CEO, Victorian Council of Social Service
Unfortunately for all of us at Victorian Council of Social Services (VCOSS) - the peak body for the social and community services sector in Victoria- the challenges are pretty obvious.
A loss of the concept and practice of community and government solidarity where the Federal Government has a role in ensuring all people living in Australia have access to:
Good quality affordable health care;
Appropriate and affordable housing; and,
Adequate incomes to ensure participation in all aspects of life
Let’s look at the facts.
Health
The Coalition government has focused on encouraging people to take up private health insurance cover. But this has made no discernable effect on the distribution of private health insurance across all income groups.
In the five years to 2004 private health insurance premiums rose by 23 per cent. The rise in the cost of private health insurance has meant a greater financial burden on taxpayers. This is not in line with making health affordable and accessible.
A 2003 survey of private health insurance found that only 19% of people with total household incomes below $20,000 have private health insurance compared to 68% of people with total household incomes of more than $100,000.
This reveals starkly that the Coalition government is on the road to replicating the American system of access to health services. That is, those who can afford it get it!
Housing
The Coalition government’s primary focus has been on assisting and stimulating the private housing market through the:
1. First home buyers grants that are not means tested. These grants have been a key factor in fueling the increase in house prices.
2. Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) for people in receipt of government incomes renting privately. But these payments do not take account of the variance in rental costs in different locations.
The Coalition government support for development of affordable housing for low income and disadvantaged people is primarily via the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement (CSHA). But, the Coalition government has been reducing is commitment to CSHA.
An exemplification of the lack of interest in housing was the Coalition government using the negotiations on Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) that funds services that support homeless people as the first program to play hard ball on Commonwealth - State shared funding. The Coalition wanted to reduce its commitment.
Income Support (Welfare)
The Coalition Government’s “Welfare to Work” package of changes to the income support and social security ‘safety net’ will be implemented from July 2006. The changes will cost an estimated $3,487 million over four years.
These changes are regressive. The changes begin a process of dismantling the welfare safety net that has been a key feature of a fair, just and egalitarian Australian society.
A key strategy is to divert new claimants to lower income allowances such as Newstart. The changes will affect 150,000 people 27,500 in Victoria. Key impacts are that:
90,000 people (13,500 Victorians) eligible the Disability Support Pension deemed “able to work” for at least 15 hours per week will get $40 less a week;
60,000 people (14,400 Victorians) eligible for the Parenting Payment whose youngest child school age (6 years) will get $20 less a week
The extension of “mutual obligation” activity requirements to people in receipt of allowances (including these 2 new groups), as well as to parents with school-aged children currently receiving the Parenting Payment.
The harsher compliance system is based on suspension of payment, rather than “breaching”, with the same maximum penalty of eight weeks’ loss of income payment.
The Welfare to Work changes will create unnecessary and unjustifiable hardship for vulnerable Victorians in receipt of government incomes, especially people with disabilities, single parent families and those looking for work.
Despite the increased investment in childcare, wage subsidies and employment assistance for people with disabilities, cuts in funding to Job Network providers and personal advisers at Centrelink will limit the capacity for people to find meaningful and long term work. At the same time there is no evidence that the current Work for the Dole programs have created any long term job opportunities for people who are unemployed.
There is inadequate investment to increase the skills and training for people who have been out of the workforce.
The new activity testing requirements will create a punitive system that will not have any bearing on people getting a job. The reduced incomes for people in receipt of allowances such as Newstart will push them deeper into poverty. Losing income for 8 weeks means that people become homeless, as they cannot pay rents, which can result in children dropping out of school and families breaking apart under this pressure.
The Welfare to Work changes will undermine family and social stability.
Conclusion
What does this all say to us about the Coalition Government’s approach to social services and social solidarity? To me is clearly asserts an ideology that supports the loss of government role in redistributing income and the acceptance of a view that “the poor will always be with us” hence it is acceptable that there is an entrenched underclass into Australian Society.
Take community action and join in the web based letter campaign to defend decent welfare.
Log onto the ACOSS website enter your postcode and send a letter to your local Federal Member of Parliament and State Senators. The letter calls on politicians not to make more Australians live in dire poverty by cutting welfare payments, but instead to invest in better assistance to help jobless people back into the workforce.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to conference program
|
