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Julia Gillard inspired a nation last week, but also condemned many single parents to a life of penury. Denise Allen reports.
Last week, our strong and inspiring Prime Minister ripped Tony Abbott a new one and called him out for the sexist bully he is.
It was a day for all Australians – regardless of whether you like or support the PM or not – and a moment in political history that no-one will forget in a hurry.
But on that very same day last week, without very much fanfare, her Party passed – with the help of the Coalition – a continuation of a Howard Government policy to reduce the income of single parents.
This Single Parent Pensions Bill is one of the most regressive policy platforms ever introduced by a Labor Government.
This bill, by reverting the Single Parent Payment to Newstart allowance once the youngest child turns eight, reduces the income support of a single parent by up to $100 per week — in some cases more.
That said, it is a slight improvement on the similar policy the Howard Government introduced in 2005 (effective July 2006) whereby Supporting Parent payments reduced to Newstart allowance when the youngest child turned just 6.
It is designed to coerce single parents back into the workforce.
Now I fully understand that there are many single parents in our society who do not attempt in any way to seek work, regardless of the age of their children. But these people – both women and men – are in the minority.
Some are relatively uneducated, have very poor social and employment skills and, even if they did have reasonable skills, many live in rural areas where employment vacancies are almost non-existent.
On the other hand, there are many single parents living in the city where rents are exorbitant, and transport and after-school care costs are an added financial burden.
Taking away up to $100 per week reduces a single parent’s ability to seek work or re-training and to function as a healthy, happy parent.
The stress that is going to be added to their daily struggle is going to be enormous.
I believe there should be “carrots” not “sticks” to encourage single parents into the work force.
Encouragement should be given to single parents to gain skills by returning to school through our TAFE system (although, now the Baillieu/O’Farrell/Newman Governments have slashed funding to TAFEs, that is going to be so much harder as well) or to enrol in a University.
How a single parent will be able to afford to do that now their income will be reduced by up to $100 per week is debatable (especially given the funding slashes to TAFE’s).
How will someone without a car manage?
How will someone without extended family support manage?
How will someone who already pays exorbitant rent manage?
What if they can’t get a job for months/years on end, no matter how hard they try?
Were these questions even considered when this legislation was being considered?
Whose idea was it to crucify struggling single parents even further?
If the Government is so desperate to find an extra $700 million per year, then why didn’t they have the courage to finally attack the rort that is negative gearing — a wealth creation system for wealthy people?
It is true that some people’s only motivation to do something will be through money.
But instead of taking money away from single parents that they use for their everyday living costs, why not offer incentives akin to the baby bonus? If governments can offer a baby bonus handout and provide extremely wealthy private schools with huge publicly funded handouts, then why can’t they come up with a policy that is more “carrot” and less “stick”; where single parents are encouraged to succeed, not threatened and deprived of the vital dollars they desperately need every day to raise their children.
Those who will scream the loudest about “lazy single parents” are the very same people who will still put their hand out for every subsidy at every opportunity. I have never seen or heard of anyone saying “No thanks, I don’t need the baby bonus” or a wealthy private school saying “No thanks, we don’t need taxpayers money to build new a rowing course or swimming pool” or “let the Government keep it for other more worthy causes.”
I expect this sort of policy from conservative governments as it is par for the course for them — but not from a progressive party.
A very wise person once told me that:
‘Governments, in the race to be the ‘best economic manager’ make decisions from an economic rationalist point of view, and in doing so lose all humanity and compassion. Saying they are “good economic managers” is rhetoric governments of both persuasions bang on about all the time. The real challenge in being a good economic manager is implementing socially responsible policy that is passionate and well managed.’
This is not socially responsible policy.
It is cruel, heartless, regressive policy that will put many single parents further under the poverty line.
I want to see policy that will assist and inspire single parents to aspire to better opportunities.
This does not do that.
Of course, I am yet to hear Tony Abbott give a “commitment in blood” to wind back this policy.
It seems, as far as Mr Abbott is concerned, it is an outrage to tax multi-billion dollar mining oligarchs and put a price on big polluters spewing filthy toxic waste into our atmosphere, but it’s ok to reduce the income of some of the poorest, most struggling people in our society.
Hypocrisy reigns.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
13 Comments
Well Denise, I said that one week ago and got howled down.
They could save $5 billion over the estimates cycle by not torturing refugees in the most regressive policy betrayal since Howard’s Tampa days.
Gillard and her cowards cannot be trusted with real issues, so much for a battle for all women.
Marilyn, Marylin, Marilyn.
You really are a broken record aren’t you dear.
Did you notice where the author gave credit where it was due as well as the valid criticism? Something you seem unable to do.
The last “progressive” government we had was the one that was done in with orchestral backing from the CIA back in 1975. Since then all the ALP governments have been conservative and the Coalition ones have been (apart from Fraser’s) pretty much Hard Right, not conservative.
Ken, it is not my fault the bloody ALP partisans take so long to understand what their so-called leader has been doing.
A correction, if I may be a pain. The Howard change you are talking about (introduced in July 2006) meant sole parents whose youngest child turned 8 (not 6) were not longer entitled to parenting payment. They “exempted” sole parents who were already getting parenting payment, keeping the old age 16 rule instead. Labor’s change is to bring this “exempt” group into line with everyone who’s gone onto parenting payment since July 2006.
If anyone’s interested, I’ve detailed the losses you describe in more detail in this post: http://ravebydave.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/single-parents-and-budget-leak.html I’ve also looked at how it affects sole parents in public housing here: http://ravebydave.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/sole-parents-public-housing-and-that.html and even taken a bit of a look at how it interacts with child support: http://ravebydave.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/uh-oh-kids-are-getting-bigger.html
Cheers!
once upon a time, working families had one parent that would work fulltime, and one would stay home to raise kids. i submit that that’s because raising one or more kids IS a fulltime job in it’s own right. they may go to school for 6 hours a day, but the other 18 hours is either hands on or on call.
i think forcing single parents to work two fulltime jobs, or a fulltime job (parenting) and even another part time job is misguided and maybe even counterproductive, performance in both may suffer due to exhaustion.
surely there are other low unemployed fruit to pick? and is 5% unemployment even that bad? this move smacks more of scrimping to make a surplus than trying to entice skills back into the workforce.
as MANY have suggested, there are better ways to raise revenue. how about stopping incentives for parents to give up work in the 1st place, like the baby bonus, perhaps means test the planned maternity leave etc.
It’s to pay for persecutihng refugees.
Mcbeastly…thank you so much for the correction..I was going on previous media reports where it stated it was 6. I also knew that it those on SPP prior to Howard Govts policy stayed on it till child was 16. Thank you also for your detailed analysis on how this policy affects SP in so many other areas. The more detailed information out there the better!
No it’s not Marilyn, and you full well know it. And maybe if your beloved refugees stopped arriving in ever increasing numbers the Gillard government might actually have more money to spend on the residents of this country.
Or are you so enmeshed in your refugee hobby you refuse to understand that this government does not have a ‘magic pudding’ that just keeps creating money for refugees who it would appear given the latest stats are quite happy to drag out the prayer mat but are pretty reluctant to get off their arses and get a job.
Your constant whingeing is boring, and sadly detracts from the premise of this meme, which I do agree with, given that I have lived the life of a single parent and I do understand how bloody hard it is.
Bundysmum, they are wasting $5 billion on a lie, and they are not my precious refugees, they are just refugees asking the country for help.
Please keep your ugly racist crap to yourself.
How am I racist Marilyn? Please tell me how I have become racist because I have expressed an opinion that does not agree with Yours?
Despite your disgust with the statistics, it would appear that the refugees that you are so willing to defend do not work, the stats of welfare dependence for this section of the community are pretty unimpressive if any of us reckon going to work is a good idea.
Dont label me as racist lady, I am far from that, but I do see things as they really are and I reiterate that there is only so much money to go round and if refugees are taking an ever increasing amount out of the welfare bucket something has to give.
And if anyone should keep their ugly crap to themselves lady, it should be you.
bundysmum, so what? We are talking about a few thousand people and they don’t work because we won’t let them.
To imply and state otherwise is racist, brainwashed crap.
Taking over the welfare bucket? Now I know you are deluded. There are about 3 million people on some form of welfare, about 20,000 of them are refugees.
If the Government was serious about saving money, aside from the billions it could save from allowing refugees to be assessed ‘on-shore’, via community organisations who would do the job of assessment and integration just as well. That wouldn’t ‘stop the boats’ though, but people have always sought ‘refuge’from poverty and oppression.
The Government could halve negative gearing and dividend imputation on profits from shares, especially for those with net wealth, other than from an owner-occupied dwellings, of more than $1million. Invest in a Government Infrastructure Fund which could offer a decent rate of return. Slightly above bank interest would do for most small investors ( and even a few multinationals seeking safety. Then use the proceeds to fund alternative energy systems, including developing thorium as an alternative energy source. The research is being done, but you see scant mention of it in the mainstream media.
This country’s biggest problems are middle class welfare, via massive subsidies to private schools, and paying pensions to people who live in mansions and can manufacture fake capital losses to set off against their capital gains if they are major share traders. Or multinationals engaging in ‘transfer pricing’. Of course there’s also the welter of big business rorts in the tax system which the Government is too weak to address. Ask Ken Henry. And we know how far the mining tax was watered down after Gillard came in.
It is ridiculous to suggest that jobs for single parents will somehow materialise magically in regional areas, when the TAFE system is being gutted by State Governments so they can’t retrain. Make the rich pay is the simple answer – the strategy to do so is of course the hard part. Once upon a time we ‘blamed the victim’ when unemployment rose i.e. they must be ‘dole bludgers’. I’m sure that the vast majority of single parents would take full time jobs if there was affordable community child care and they could re-train to get these jobs, or be retrained to run their own businesses from home, with really good tax breaks to encourage them to earn. Australia…the only Third World country where you can drink the water! You need wisdom and courage to solve this country’s problems. Unfortunately there is little of either trait on display at the moment. But as my dear departed Grandma used to say “We live in hope if we die in despair”.