The Greens welcome the abolition of ParentsNext and congratulate all the advocates and parents who have won this hard-fought battle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greens have been calling on the federal government to abolish ParentsNext for years, and while this is a positive step, Labor has flagged a new co-designed program set to replace ParentsNext. The devil will be in the details, and the Greens call on Labor to commit to a transparent co-design process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Janet Rice, Greens spokesperson for Social Services, said: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe co-design process must be transparent and lead by affected parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThough a welcome announcement, it\u2019s yet another example of Labor tinkering around the edges ahead of a budget that will likely do nothing for the vast majority of people on Centrelink payments or single parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMutual obligations are punitive and coercive for everyone on income support, not only parents with kids under 6. Jobseeker and all Centrelink payments are woefully inadequate, not just for people on Jobseeker that are over 55. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo one deserves poverty. That\u2019s true whether you\u2019re 20 or 60, a parent or childless, a renter or student or living with a disability. No one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor is spending $368 billion on nuclear submarines and $254 billion on tax cuts for the rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBudgets are about choices. Instead of doubling down on leaving people without heating or food or medicines as they struggle to pay the rent, Labor can choose differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLabor must axe the Stage 3 tax cuts, end punitive mutual obligations, and raise all Centrelink payments above the poverty line.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Larissa Waters, Greens leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Women, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAround 95 per cent of ParentsNext participants are women, and this program has been allowed to punish and stigmatise them since its introduction in 2018 – which the Greens tried to disallow at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRather than supporting women to get back to work, ParentsNext often meant women had to skip paid work, endure stress and stigma, and were left unable to feed their kids when their payments were cut. It should never have been approved and we\u2019re glad to see the back of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Government must now deliver on all of the recommendations of its Women\u2019s Economic Equality Taskforce, including restoring support to single parents until their youngest turns 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe upcoming budget must fully reverse the Gillard government\u2019s shameful decision to cut off Parenting Payment Single when kids turn 8, not tinker around the edges with a lift to 13 or 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBudget savings should never have been made by pushing people into poverty. If Labor are serious about taking a gendered lens to this budget, they could start by scrapping the Stage 3 tax cuts, which mostly benefit rich men, so we could fund things that will actually help the people who need it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Greens welcome the abolition of ParentsNext and congratulate all the advocates and parents who have won this hard-fought battle. The Greens have been calling on the federal government to abolish ParentsNext for years, and while this is a positive step, Labor has flagged a new co-designed program set to replace ParentsNext. The devil will … Continue reading “GREENS WELCOME ABOLITION OF PARENTSNEXT, CALL ON LABOR TO COMMIT TO TRANSPARENT CO-DESIGN PROCESS FOR NEW SCHEME AND END MUTUAL OBLIGATIONS”<\/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-21099","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\/21099","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=21099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21100,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21099\/revisions\/21100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}