Australian Greens spokesperson for social services, Senator Janet Rice, is again urging Minister Jim Chalmers to heed calls from the Greens, academics, peak bodies and the millions of Australians currently living below the poverty line, to raise the rate of income support in May\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Rice said<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAfter calls from ACOSS and other members of the government\u2019s own economic inclusion advisory committee to raise the rate of Jobseeker, we\u2019re hearing the same absurd lines from Jim Chalmers today as we heard ahead of last year\u2019s October budget – that Labor would love to help struggling Australians, but it\u2019s just so difficult to find room in the budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNew research from Oxfam shows Australian billionaires\u2019 wealth is 61% higher than it was before the pandemic, and the richest 1% of Australians now have a combined wealth of nearly $236 billion. It\u2019s infuriating that Labor found plenty of room in the budget to give them another $9000 a year in tax cuts, but baulk at the idea of raising Jobseeker above the poverty line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe cost of living crisis has only worsened in recent months. People on income support can\u2019t cover their most basic needs and a third of Australian households are struggling to put food on the table. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA government has a moral responsibility to ensure its citizens aren\u2019t left starving. Poverty is a political choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor should scrap the stage 3 tax cuts and invest that money into raising all income support payments above the poverty line and building a proper social safety net for all Australians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cParliament must respond to the cost of living impacts for people on starvation wages and income support. The Greens are fighting for a livable income guarantee that would raise payments to $88 a day, above the poverty line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Australian Greens spokesperson for social services, Senator Janet Rice, is again urging Minister Jim Chalmers to heed calls from the Greens, academics, peak bodies and the millions of Australians currently living below the poverty line, to raise the rate of income support in May\u2019s budget. Senator Rice said: \u201cAfter calls from ACOSS and other members … Continue reading “GREENS URGE LABOR TO ACT ON CALLS TO RAISE JOBSEEKER IN MAY\u2019S BUDGET”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19832,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions\/19832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}