LABOR MPs have been challenged to
spend a week living on just $35 a day, after ruling out an immediate
increase to the Newstart Allowance.
As a government inquiry heard overwhelming evidence that
Australia's unemployment benefit was not enough to survive on, Labor
held the line on its unwillingness to boost the payment.
Greens Senator Rachel Siewert who earlier this year tried living on the allowance said Labor's MPs should make an attempt to live on the meagre payment before writing off its increase.
It comes a day after Employment Minister
Bill Shorten, ruling out an increase, told ABC 24 he found it hard to "make ends meet" on his current salary of about $330,000.
Mr Shorten said yesterday he was trying to make the point that it
would be extremely difficult to live off $249 a week: "I think that the
Newstart allowance is very low and it would be very difficult for anyone
to make ends meet," he said.
When asked if he would try living
on Newstart, Treasurer Wayne Swan's office pointed News Ltd to a YouTube
video from 2011 where Mr Swan spent just one day day participating in
the Live Below the Line campaign.
In the video, Mr Swan said
poverty was "intolerable", and pointed out the fact he'd been forced to
give up his morning coffee for the campaign.
In Opposition in 2005, Mr Swan wrote a book, challenging then
Treasurer Peter Costello to to make a "real effort to understand the
plight of the poor".
"(I) challenge the Treasurer in particular
to try to live off the minimum wage and to harness that understanding
for better public policies," Mr Swan wrote.
Newstart is 40 per cent below the minimum wage.
The
government inquiry into the adequacy of Newstart was told Australians
on the payment are spiralling into uncontrollable debt, maxing out
credit cards and turning to payday lenders as they spend 122 per cent of
their income each week. Deputy Australian Council of Social Services
chief Tessa Boyd-Caine said Newstart hadn't been increased in real terms
since 1994.
"So far only one Federal politician has experienced how tough it is to exist on the Newstart Allowance," Ms Boyd-Caine said.
"We
would welcome more politicians experiencing first hand what it's like
to try and live on $35 a day, how it feels to be a person on Newstart
having to choose between filling a prescription and putting food on the
table."
A spokesman for Mr Swan said: "The treasurer's record of
protecting low income Australians speaks for itself," pointing to
pension increases and creating 800,000 jobs.
news.com.au 29 Aug 2012
An assault on the general public, intelligence and an insult to the unfortunate people who have to rely on welfare payments from government, comes from the mouth of a politician Mr. Bill Shorten who apparently 'struggles to make ends meet' on a $330,000 salary.
A politician who dares to make such ludicrous claims should be sacked from his position, as being unfit to govern.
Politicians are in the "Money for Mates" scams that the general populous' taxes pay for, including $55.000 per annum salary increases.
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