Antipoverty Centre rejects shameful report from economic "inclusion" committee
Another report that excludes poor people – the real experts in poverty – causes more harm than good
The Economic Exclusion Committee1 released its third report today. The Antipoverty Centre is frustrated and disturbed by the committee’s continued exclusion of welfare recipients. This report has no credibility with people in poverty.
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Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and JobSeeker recipient Jay Coonan
The exclusion committee once again delivered an embarrassing report that does not reflect the views or best interests of welfare recipients.
This committee of technocratic non-experts and people representing corporations and poverty profiteers have no idea how much it costs to live the decent life we all deserve, and the pathetically inadequate recommendations in this dense and impenetrable report prove it.
The report shamefully endorses “mutual” obligations requirements, claiming tweaks to the system will “end harm”. We categorically reject this bizarre claim. It is impossible to have a system where poor people can be cut off from their only income that does not cause harm.
The exclusion committee report is an utterly shameful piece of work that peddles the false “dole bludger” narratives that led us to the Targeted Compliance Framework. It recommends nothing to fundamentally change a system that was designed to punish people for the fact that we are poor.
At time when there is a growing acceptance in the community and civil society that “mutual” obligations are pointless, punitive and unnecessary, and legal questions over their administration, it is embarrassing that a cherry-picked government-appointed committee representing corporate business and charity interests is given any say over the rights of people in poverty.
Despite our persistent attempts to emphasise to government and the committee the importance of having people with direct experience2 of poverty and the welfare system leading any work that purports to be about our lives, we and other groups involved in welfare advocacy have been actively excluded from this process, with the invitation-only consultation centring organisations led by people with no direct experience of poverty.3
We know that groups who oppose “mutual” obligations were intentionally excluded. It is completely unacceptable to substitute organisations led by welfare recipients with extractive focus groups that use poor people as props rather than enable them to lead.
We demand that the exclusion committee come clean and tell us, in what specific case would cutting a welfare recipient off their payment be a proportionate compliance action?
We don’t need another report. We need payments above the Henderson poverty line, and then work to understand the real cost of living a decent life. We need all compulsory activities such as “mutual” obligations abolished. We need every person who needs income support to be able to access it. Full stop.
Media contact: 0403 429 414 / media at antipovertycentre.org
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‘Exclusion committee’ is the name we use to refer to the Economic “Inclusion” Advisory Committee. We will continue to use this name until the committee is inclusive of people affected by poverty and unemployment.
‘Direct experience’ means a person who themselves has contemporary, ongoing and/or recent experience of poverty, unemployment or the social security system and who is affected by other government policies related to people who experience economic exclusion. We use this term to mean people who have this expertise in economic exclusion and are also actively involved in advocacy, policy or peer support work, whether individually or as part of an organisation.
The organisations invited to participate in consultation are: e61, Australian Youth Affairs Coalition, Grattan Institute, Centre of Policy Development, The Paul Ramsay Foundation, Economic Justice Australia, The Committee for Economic Development of Australia, People with Disability Australia, Single Mother Families Australia, Council for Single Mothers and their Children, Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia and the Coalition of Peaks. Source dss.gov.au/committees/consultation-and-research-economic-inclusion-advisory-committee-report-2025-26-budget