To answer the question of why Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are falling dismally short in their efforts to sell the budget to the Australian community, you need look no further than the evidence presented to the Senate Inquiry into the Government’s proposed changes to social security, which includes the dumping young people off income support.
People won’t cop a budget that delivers perverse outcomes and sees disadvantaged people being left so much worse off, but that is exactly what the Government is offering. The extensive changes the Government wants really are nothing short of terrible and will have significant negative impacts on young people, older people, people with disability and single parents.
This government is either really bad at policy and understanding the consequences of such dramatic change, or they really are targeting the most disadvantaged and want to humiliate and punish people.
Virtually everything the Committee has heard so far, both in written submissions and public hearings, confirms that the changes the Government wants to social security are incredibly poor and unfair policy. Witness after witness told the committee about the many adverse consequences of the Government's proposals.
During our two days of public hearings in Sydney, some of the nation’s leading community organisations shared concerns about the sheer number of measures proposed by this legislation, the lack of consideration that appears to have gone into its development and the significant consequences the measures will have.
If the individual changes weren’t concerning enough, a number of submissions have drawn attention to their cumulative effects, with multiple changes combining to deliver a significant hit to our most vulnerable people and households.
Far too many Australians, including young people, older people, single parents and people with disability will be affected, a situation that doesn’t come close to the ‘burden sharing’ the government claims is delivered by this budget.
A common theme throughout our hearings and the submissions to the Committee is disbelief at the way in which young people, and I use the term young loosely, are being treated as ‘undeserving’ by this Government. The Youth Affairs Council of SA told us that it was unprecedented for the Government to refer to the entire cohort of people aged under 30 as ‘youth’.
These bills will punish people for situations outside their control, the measures will have perverse outcomes and make it even harder for people to overcome disadvantage to find work. It was reiterated to us during the hearings that people want jobs, but the positions are not there.
There are over one and half million people (those on Newstart and DSP) looking for work and applying for around 180,000 jobs advertised recently. No matter how hard you punish people, they can't get jobs that aren't there.
Many witnesses believe that these measures will actually be counterproductive, and will keep people out of work, rather than helping them into secure employment.
This evidence and testimony typifies the confusion and concern about the Government’s approach. If anything, these two days of hearing raised more questions than they answered. The Government's motivation and justification for their regime is either ill thought out or they are deliberately trying to punish people - either way it must be abandoned.
The only points of clarity are that these reforms will make things so much harder for many people in our community, in particular those who are already facing poverty and disadvantage.
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