Social Services minister Christian Porter has announced the government’s latest News Limited sponsored pogrom against welfare. Porter is claiming that an unemployed, single parent with four children receives nearly $3,000 per year more on welfare than if they were on a median full-time wage.
In fact a single parent with four children on a median full-time wage also qualifies for the family tax benefit – meaning they earn about $30,000 a year more than if they were unemployed. That fact hasn’t stopped Porter and the government from announcing a $96 million crackdown on welfare spending, so here are some more facts:
The Newstart Allowance is nearly $200 per week below the poverty line
Also below the poverty line are 731,000 children who are dependent on welfare paid to their parents/carers
There is one job vacancy for every 7 unemployed people
That figure is considerably higher among young people and those living in remote areas, and higher still among people aged over 50
Of the 768,000 people currently on Newstart, 31.5% are aged over 50
In the last 15 years around 50% of individuals and 70% of households have needed to access welfare for a period of time due to unemployment, sickness and injury, or financial hardship
‘Welfare dependents’ (people who have relied on welfare for the majority of their income for the last decade) make up 0.3% of all people on welfare
The proportion of people in Australia on welfare is the lowest it has been in 19 years
Out of 30 OECD countries, Australia ranks 25th for spending on welfare
The government is planning changes to welfare which are expected to save taxpayers $300 million a year
The government is not planning changes to negative gearing which costs taxpayers $3 billion a year
Christian Porter’s bullshit has been widely spruiked in the Murdoch press – they are owned by News Australia who last year paid less than 1% tax on an annual turnover of $4 billion.