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Ruthless budget “repair”: Unsustainable austerity will cost poor people their lives
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Ruthless budget “repair”: Unsustainable austerity will cost poor people their lives

The government knows people on Centrelink payments die by suicide at extraordinary rates yet they are pushing us to bear the cost of budget repair.

The Antipoverty Centre
Oct 26, 2022
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Ruthless budget “repair”: Unsustainable austerity will cost poor people their lives
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The Albanese government’s first federal budget has dealt a predictable but nonetheless devastating blow to welfare recipients and people in poverty. The government has delivered on its promise to continue wasting billions on harmful (un)employment services while refusing to provide a single extra dollar to welfare recipients.

The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union has organised a parliamentary petition calling for income support payments above the Henderson poverty line. Visit the parliament website to sign.

[Content warning: suicide, self-harm.]

Included below: reactions from welfare recipients; key statistics; crisis line contact information.

There is no such thing as a wellbeing budget that leaves people in poverty. Making sure everyone has enough to live should be the government’s highest and most urgent priority. Millions of people on poverty payments – and those who need help but can’t even get it – have been left behind by Albanese and Chalmers. People on unemployment payments for longer than 4 years are twice as likely to die by suicide – the average time on payments is now 6 years.

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The choices in this budget will cause the most harm to people in poverty who already face the greatest intersectional disadvantage: First Nations people, trans people and disabled people.

Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and DSP recipient Kristin O’Connell

Albanese has given us no help and no hope. This budget is a death trap.

The forecast is higher electricity bills, low wage growth and more unemployment. It means more people feeling suicide and self-harm are their only option.

Poor people are not the cause of inflation but we are the ones being punished for it.

This budget is nothing but an exercise in blatant social murder. The ghouls running this country have chosen to get their precious budget savings at the cost of lives they deem disposable.

People on the lowest incomes cannot take any more. We cannot sustain the brutal welfare policies inflicted on us.

We’re not coping with the price increases we’ve already seen, let alone more. Electricity and gas going up means more people having their power cut off, more people in debt they can’t repay and more people homeless.

We don’t need more demeaning food banks, voucher programs, services, mental health awareness. We need money. We need it urgently. Politicians know this.

Every poverty-related death is a political choice.

Media contact: 0413 261 362 / media at antipovertycentre.org

Budget reactions from people in poverty

Twitter avatar for @phonakins
💜 phonakins @phonakins
@kristin8X They promised welfare recipients nothing and they delivered
12:17 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
3Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @heapscoolguy
Mitch @heapscoolguy
Fuck this. Really. I’m 33, I have stage iv cancer and before that I worked, paid taxes and did all that shit. #Budget2023 will see me likely die on about $50 a day. Nobody left behind? We’re right here and there’s a fuckin’ lot of us.
9:47 AM ∙ Oct 25, 2022
594Likes172Retweets
Twitter avatar for @inside_cupboard
Thoughtsfromcupboard (she/they) 🏳️‍🌈🌻🦓 @inside_cupboard
@JrehnJ @lisa_spiers5 @kristin8X I’m genuinely broken today. I feel like I was only hanging on by the barest of threads of hope & now that’s been unceremoniously cut by the gov who used our stories to score political points in opposition only to hand down worse austerity policies than the British Tories
2:45 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
2Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @ArtistAffame
melissa @ArtistAffame
I'm going to take a couple of days break and work on my mental health. I honestly don't think I can take people defending labors decision to ignore people in poverty. I expected it but it still feels like a huge kick in the guts. We've all worked so hard to advocate for labor
10:12 AM ∙ Oct 25, 2022
863Likes84Retweets
Twitter avatar for @jiangyin
Aeryn 🦉 🏳️‍🌈 🌻 @jiangyin
@kristin8X They promised nobody would be left behind. I guess poor people are nobody because we've been left behind. 😡
1:03 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
9Likes3Retweets
Twitter avatar for @Formid
Sean Kenny @Formid
Which one of these can I use to pay my rent?
Twitter avatar for @AustralianLabor
Australian Labor @AustralianLabor
Our resilience, our pragmatism, our cooperation and our confidence, and above all else, our belief in each other.
9:55 AM ∙ Oct 25, 2022
141Likes32Retweets
Twitter avatar for @Haarky
Harky @Haarky
@OnQand @wokabaut_meri No body left behind we were promised, doesn’t feel that way , full pensioners and jobseekers are WAY behind
12:48 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
4Likes2Retweets
Twitter avatar for @viexon66
Louise @viexon66
glad to see the discussion of poverty in Australia on ABC. we can’t stop talking about this. people will die because of this budget. we need to increase the rate of welfare payments, we need to build PUBLIC housing.
10:27 AM ∙ Oct 25, 2022
11Likes2Retweets
Twitter avatar for @mini_niner
Mini Niner @mini_niner
Fuck Jim Chalmers. Fuck Albanese. Lying pigs. https://t.co/UQ1l9xaj3Z
Twitter avatar for @kristin8X
kristin #BTPM (she/her) @kristin8X
@AlboMP @JEChalmers @SenKatyG @AmandaRishworth The base JobSeeker payment is currently $321 a week or about 45% below the poverty line, which is $616 a week. Youth Allowance for unemployed folks is 55% below the poverty line. And the cost of living crisis is making things even harder. #Budget2022 #BTPM https://t.co/xBbmstRJzJ
12:08 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
2Likes1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @bang3r
Bang3r @bang3r
@kristin8X As a poor disabled person I have completely given up being supported by this country, it will never happen in my lifetime as far as I'm concerned, they hate us far too much for that.
12:16 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
Twitter avatar for @CuddlyCaracal
Caracal @CuddlyCaracal
#Budget2023 Labor pretended to care about vulnerable and poor people. A thread of Labor MPs that said we should #raisetherate and then did nothing. People on welfare cannot afford basic needs. Starving. Sick. Cold. We can do better.
10:31 AM ∙ Oct 25, 2022
196Likes106Retweets
Twitter avatar for @maybesheen1
sheen @maybesheen1
@kristin8X I dont see wellbeing there - i see tax cuts for the wealthy - something like over $250 billion , $150 million more to offshore detention. 5 billion to families. :(
12:52 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022
1Like1Retweet
Twitter avatar for @JadziaBenntley
Jadzia (the Polish one, not the Trill one) @JadziaBenntley
@kristin8X Yeah. Fuck Labor!
12:16 AM ∙ Oct 26, 2022

Key statistics

  • The base JobSeeker payment is currently $321 a week or about 45% below the poverty line, which is $616 a week. Youth Allowance is 55% below the poverty line.

  • Despite the unemployment rate of 3.5% being 33% lower than before the pandemic hit – the it’s been lowest since 1974 – there are 20,000 more people on JobSeeker today than in February 2020, with 772,000 people relying on the payment in September.

  • People on unemployment payments for longer than four years are twice as likely to die by suicide. The average time on payments is now 6 years and 158,000 people on JobSeeker have relied on a Centrelink payment for more than 10 years.

  • One in 5 people on an unemployment payment is employed. 359,000 people on the JobSeeker payment (43% of total recipients) have partial capacity to work with a recorded medical condition or disability. 240,000 people on JobSeeker – or nearly 1 in 3 – are over 55 facing age discrimination. More than 100,000 are primary carers. (Source: https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-cff2ae8a-55e4-47db-a66d-e177fe0ac6a0/details)

  • An August 2019 Essential poll found 84% believed that no one in Australia should go without essentials like food, healthcare and power. Only 30% believed it would be better to spend money on services instead of increasing unemployment payments. A May 2020 Essential poll found 57% support for JobSeeker being at least as high as the age pension, including 51% of Coalition voters. An Ipsos poll released in August 2021 found 77% of people supported a liveable income guarantee above the poverty line. A November 2021 Ipsos poll found 65–74% support for JobSeeker payments to be above the poverty line in Liberal-held marginal electorates. The electorates polled were Boothby, Swan, Longman, Blair and Dobell. Between 49% and 60% of voters in the five seats said they would consider changing their vote to a party that would lift the rate above $69 a day.


Crisis support and counselling services

If you need support you can seek guidance, counselling or crisis help from the below organisations or talk to someone you trust.

  • Suicide Call Back Service – general: 1300 659 467

  • SANE Australia – general: 1800 187 263

  • 13YARN – for First Nations people: 13 92 76

  • National Counselling and Referral Service – for disabled people: 1800 421 468

  • Headspace – for young people: 1800 650 890

  • QLife – fo LGBTQIA+ people: 1800 184 527

  • Full Stop – for people who have experienced sexual harassment and assault: 1800 385 578

  • Embrace Mental Health – multilingual service: embracementalhealth.org.au

  • MensLine – for men: 1300 789 978

  • Brother to Brother – for First Nations men: 1800 435 799


About the Antipoverty Centre

The Antipoverty Centre was established in May 2021 by people living on Centrelink payments to counter problems with academics, think tanks and others in the political class making harmful decisions on behalf of people they purport to represent.

We have deep expertise in poverty, disadvantage and unemployment, because we live it. Our goal is to help ensure the voices and rights of people living in poverty are at the centre of social policy development and discourse. We believe there should be no decision made about us without us.

The Antipoverty Centre is not aligned with any political party and does not accept funding that places political constraints on our work.


Sign up to receive updates from the Antipoverty Centre in your inbox as soon as they are published, or you can follow our work on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.


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See: https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/32419cdd-b9c7-4f7c-aeee-a58c51eb4439/Social-and-economic-factors-associated-with-suicide-in-Australia-a-focus-on-individual-income.pdf.aspx and https://data.gov.au/dataset/ds-dga-cff2ae8a-55e4-47db-a66d-e177fe0ac6a0/details

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