Following the announcement of the imminent closure of the South Melbourne Centrelink office in late October, the Greens are alarmed that the Labor government is not only refusing to raise the rate of income support, but also making access to services even harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This closure will have a major impact on the many residents in South Melbourne and surrounding areas. In the federal electorate of Macnamara where this closure is taking place, almost 10,000 people are on Jobseeker payments. By closing this office, Services Australia is making it harder for constituents to access the help they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Janet Rice, Greens spokesperson for government and social services said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis Labor government continues to give Services Australia a free pass to make people\u2019s lives harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople on Centrelink payments are already doing it tough – and it\u2019s about to go from bad to worse. Not only are income support payments far below the poverty line, but now even accessing those inadequate payments is going to be that much tougher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLocal South Melbourne resident and retired community worker Kerrie has told me that the closure of the South Melbourne Centrelink office will mainly affect the most vulnerable and marginalised locals: homeless people, disabled people, some older people and others who lack access to digital devices or who simply find them challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe closure is a decision that places an unnecessary burden on people who are already facing financial hardship. We should be making it easier for them to access the support they need, not harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPunitive income support systems designed by current and previous governments and their agencies exist to punish people in poverty, rather than help them – this situation in South Melbourne is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n local resident and retired community worker Kerrie said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHomeless people flock to the inner-city due to the abundance of services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re living in precarious circumstances but still have to report your earnings every fortnight to Centrelink, it can be a lot easier to just present at the local office than to find a working phoneline or public computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs the Jobseeker rate is still abysmal, some people just can\u2019t afford to keep their phone or laptop in credit for the whole fortnight – reporting in person is cheaper than buying a phone recharge voucher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBoth State and Federal Labor Governments have broken their social contract \u2013 shutting down Centrelink offices is the sort of heartless cutback we\u2019d expect from a Liberal government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following the announcement of the imminent closure of the South Melbourne Centrelink office in late October, the Greens are alarmed that the Labor government is not only refusing to raise the rate of income support, but also making access to services even harder. This closure will have a major impact on the many residents in … Continue reading “LABOR, SERVICES AUSTRALIA PROVE DISDAIN FOR POOR PEOPLE WITH CENTRELINK OFFICE CLOSURE”<\/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-22879","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\/22879","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=22879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22880,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22879\/revisions\/22880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}