Welfare cuts for political capital? (Australia)
Welfare cuts for political capital? (Australia)
From Australia… with possible echoes in the US MELBOURNE: John Passant, tutor in the School of Political Science and International Relations in the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University, comments on the recent welfare cuts by the Australian Federal Government – . Jenny Macklin (Federal Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs), who is leading the racist Northern Territory intervention, has spread income management from its test run on Aborigines to some other communities: poor white people. She is responsible for the removal from 1 January of 100,000 single parents – 90 per cent of whom are women – from the single or partnered parenting payment to Newstart. ….. Macklin argues this will encourage more people into the workforce.
It won’t. As the Labor Party’s Penny Wong and Craig Emerson pointed out when prime minister John Howard tried something similar as part of his infamous ”welfare to work” program, all it will do is increase their poverty and misery. It will, however, save the Labor government $728 million in four years, which is the real reason Labor is doing it. In 2005, the current Finance Minister, Penny Wong, condemned the Howard’s proposed changes, saying there was no evidence that ”dumping a sole parent or her children or a person with a disability in this country onto the lower dole payment would help them get work.”
Found on the Australian CM site,
Tags: Anti-poverty strategies, Australia, housing, Racism, Welfare