Australians who are losing paid work and struggling to make ends meet because of COVID-19 lockdowns are being denied access to the federal government’s emergency payment because they receive welfare payments.
In lieu of bringing back JobKeeper, in early June Prime Minister Scott Morrison introduced the federal government’s COVID disaster payment to support workers caught in lockdowns lasting more than a week. Yesterday Morrison announced an increased payment of $600 for workers who have lost more than 20 hours of work, and $375 for those who lost up to 20 hours.
However, the government’s eligibility for the fund excludes anyone who receives income support payments such as JobSeeker, youth allowance or the carer payment.
According to quarterly data released in March, more than 645,000 people across Australia declared earnings in the past fortnight while receiving income support payments. This makes them ineligible for the disaster payment if they’re in an area where stay-at-home orders are enforced but also vulnerable to suddenly losing income.
Meaghan Sinclair, 26, lives in Coburg, a suburb of Melbourne, and has been caught up in this exclusion. She’s worked for a family-owned small business for six years. During the first lockdown, Sinclair’s shifts were cut to two days a week, which meant she had to use her savings to live.
When JobKeeper was rolled out, her hours were restored, but then cut to three days a week after the company began earning too much to qualify for JobKeeper. Sinclair applied for JobSeeker.
“I currently work 22.5 hours a week, and am managing to scrape through with rent, bills and other expenses,” she said. “This means I barely qualified for JobSeeker, but they managed to let me have $45 a fortnight.”
During this year’s lockdown, Sinclair was ineligible for the $500 a week she would have received from the COVID-19 disaster payment because of the relatively small amount she was earning from JobSeeker.
Sinclair’s worried about the future. Reduced hours and a paltry welfare payment has meant she’s burned through all her savings. She’s reduced her expenses and is living week to week. She needs a haircut, but has to plan around her rent and other bills.
“I had money put aside for a crisis, but I didn’t plan for a crisis that lasted 18 months,” she said.
Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union spokesman Jeremy Heywood tells Crikey the disaster payment had a number of flaws. He criticised the ineligibility of those on income supplement payments and that payments only start in the second week of a lockdown.
“The government wants to be seen to be doing something but these ridiculous conditions drastically reduce the number of people eligible for support,” he said. “It appears to be nothing more than penny-pinching at the expense of the people who need help the most.”
The union has called for Parliament to reconvene to immediately reintroduce income support measures that Australia had at the height of the pandemic because of Sydney’s recent outbreak.
Neither Morrison nor Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s office responded to questions about the decision to exclude income supplement payment recipients.
This decision makes no sense. Realistically people qualifying even for very small income support payments are at least skirting the poverty line, will probably be more greatly impacted by the reduction of shifts, and have more inelastic spending needs that are less likely to drop as much with lockdown. They’re a group more in need of support, and where support is more effective, not less.
As NSW plunges back into lockdown, the banks have been warned to prepare for negative interest rates. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank has quietly conceded the banks have not lent the $188 billion pandemic stimulus, parking it in their $314b war-chest at the central bank earning no interest….Michael West.
Bloody glad all that money was spent on the Coalition’s fake RC into Banks.
Just like the bushfire relief money
Scott Morrison’s $2 billion bushfire recovery fund is only “notional”, the vast majority of money has gone to the Liberal states of NSW and SA, and there’s no transparency to the spending, with a key website changed to make it even more difficult to find information.
The federal Coalition government has made it even more difficult to track the spending of billions of dollars of bushfire recovery money by subsuming the National Bushfire Recovery Agency into the National Recovery and Resilience Agency. Even less detail is available about the spending of taxpayers’ money.
The website changes come just months after Michael West Media revealed extraordinary pork barrelling by the NSW Coalition government of the Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund.
What does the federal government think people do with these welfare payments? Hoard them in their castles? Every dollar gets spent, creating income for someone else, and lubricating this stuttering economy. It makes no sense to pinch these pennies.
A lot of projection in their thinking. Their wealthy corporate mates were the biggest rorters of last year’s relief package.
So when Frydenberg beams about what a great economic recovery we’re all having….who is it actually happening to? Harvey Norman and Woolies are stoked, Twiggy, Gina et al are having an iron ore-gasmic time, the building industry are flat-out but running short of supplies…so what about everyone else?
I can only speak anecdotally, but there are a lot of small and medium business operators I know who have shut up shop, and others clinging to the cliff’s edge for grim death.
They all get to vote too, come the next election. I can’t believe the LNP can be so obtuse, such penny-pinchers, to not see the tsunami of hatred they are creating, and it’s all their own doing.
Albo must be just watching in amazement.
What will really amaze Albo is when he doesn’t win the next election. Itll make Shortens loss seem like the pinnacle of labor achievement. I’m not happy about it but I reckon it’s true. Sad times for the small business people and young Australians and anyone with a dream, who, as you mention, are just getting shafted right now.
Tony from Melbourne, I’m not hugely confident of an ALP win, but I think the LNP are doing a lot to make a loss for themselves a definite possibility.
Out of interest, what things are making you lean towards a return of the LNP?
Purely the perceived quality of the opposition by the electorate.
PS – it might depend heavily upon the progress with Covid. If the rest of the world has improved and we haven’t, then maybe ALP have a shot, but if Covid lockdowns are still a problem overseas then LNP will win for sure in my opinion. I reckon the biggest factor will be a comparison by the electorate of Oz v the rest of the world progress against Covid. Just my opinion…if I had a dollar for every time I was wrong…..
PSS it’s why I expect to see labor states and feds maintain covid problems as long as possible. Get tested, get tested, we need those numbers…..
As NSW plunges back into lockdown, the banks have been warned to prepare for negative interest rates. Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank has quietly conceded the banks have not lent the $188 billion pandemic stimulus, instead parking it in their $314b war-chest at the central bank earning no interest. Google Michael West
It will have gone largely unnoticed, very largely unnoticed, but the banks have been warned to prepare for negative interest rates. Negative rates mean you pay the bank to park your money, rather than the bank paying interest to you, the depositor.
It’s a radical proposition, something never before seen in this country, and something the Reserve Bank has said would not happen.
Will not happen
PS Michael West is a hack anti LNP warrior but occasionally has some good pieces. He’s highly predictable though. He’s a glass almost empty sort of guy…
And in another article here we have recidivist anti lockdown offender Swab’s crocodile tears being squeezed out after sniffing an onion and commiserating with the poor and how they’re that are affected by lockdowns. Profound appalling hypocrisy. It is his fellow business associates who are lining their pockets with wage theft, a casualized cheap compliant poor scared non English speaking work force. While business pockets millions and Harvey Norman is an essential business along with Gucci et al. all allowed to stay open Adam Swab.
Chant says some people should consider getting their second dose of AstraZeneca as soon as four weeks after the first in exceptional circumstances.
Oh yeah she’s an expert’s hind leg
”If the two [AZ] doses were given less than six weeks apart the efficacy was only 54.9%”
https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n326