On the night of Labor’s election in May last year, Anthony Albanese paid tribute to his mother, the late Maryanne Ellery, who raised him alone in inner-city public housing.
Ellery suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Her source of income was the invalid pension, an earlier version of today’s disability support pension. That night, Albanese felt her “beaming down” on his election as prime minister.
Almost a year later and Albanese’s deployment of his personal narrative is losing credibility. He needs to rescue his very public relationship with his past, and the federal budget next week is likely to include two changes to this effect.
Changes to JobSeeker
On Monday, news broke that the government looks likely to increase the JobSeeker rate for recipients aged over 55. The Australian Unemployed Workers Union (AUWU) calls it an “opportunistic brain fart”. To my knowledge, no-one has been pushing for this. The excellent Antipoverty Centre has crunched the data: this would leave 684,360 people languishing on the JobSeeker rate of about $50 a day.
In a rental crisis which is unlikely to ease for years, raising the rate for some and not others is pernicious politics. Social security recipients under 55 also need to eat, should be able to attend to their mental and physical health, hold extensive responsibilities to others, use public transport, and much more.
Changes to parenting payment
The second likely change is more welcome. The Howard government’s 2006 welfare to work reforms altered the eligibility rules for the parenting payment, which offers financial assistance to principal carers with parenting responsibilities for a young child. New recipients of the single-parent payment were moved on to the unemployment support once their youngest child turned eight. They also became subject to its punitive conditions, which might include work for the dole.
In 2012, then-prime minister Julia Gillard ended the grandfathering of the Howard government’s changes. Previously, those receiving the parenting payment before 2006 were exempt from the changes, and allowed to remain on the payment until their youngest child turned 16.
Gillard ended this arrangement the same day she cemented her liberal feminist legacy by delivering her fabled misogyny speech. This speech has been printed on to tea towels. Meanwhile, Gillard condemned many single mums to poverty as they were abruptly moved to the lower rate. JobSeeker is $204 less per fortnight than the single-parent payment.
The budget looks likely to include an adjustment to the eligibility rule. The Albanese government has indicated it is preparing to make changes to the single-parent payment, with Guardian Australia reporting recipients will soon be eligible to stay on the support until their youngest child turns 14 (there has been speculation it would be lifted to 12).
This is significant considering the government’s broader focus on women’s work. The Albanese government has launched an inquiry into the cost of childcare, which is undeniably a problem, especially given the low wages the sector’s feminised workforce commands. The childcare question is consistently linked to productivity — time spent caring is represented as a drag on productivity.
The message is that all our lives should be monopolised by waged work. Reforming the parenting payment eligibility would entail meaningful recognition of the value of the work of sole parenting against the grain of the relentless emphasis on waged work. The advocacy of the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children on this issue has been tireless and persuasive.
The economic upshot
Certainly these two more targeted initiatives are cheaper than the government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee’s recommendation to raise the JobSeeker rate to 90% of the age pension at the cost of $24 billion over the next four years. This is the opportunism the AUWU points to.
“Cheaper.” What a dismal equation. Dignity and, say, meals, for all are too expensive? Acquiring a fleet of submarines with a price tag of $368 billion is not? Why are the $243 billion in stage three tax cuts over the next decade — almost 80% of which will benefit those earning over $120,000 a year — off limits? Fossil fuel subsidies don’t figure anywhere in this conversation?
Fraser-era hostility to “dole bludgers” revolved around a masculine image of work-shy youth. Today a JobSeeker recipient is likely to be “older, to be a woman and importantly to have a … chronic illness or disabilities”. Is the Albanese government banking on this new reality to arouse public empathy in the way youth unemployment historically hasn’t?
The human toll
Last Friday, I attended a protest at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s electoral office. I went in solidarity: the protest was organised by the AUWU and centred the voices of recipients of JobSeeker and disability support pension payments. Speakers described the struggle to exist on miserly income support and shared their analysis of this urgent political moment. The takeaway: JobSeeker must be raised for all, and it needs to be done now.
At the protest, I met a JobSeeker recipient who is over 55. We chatted about the two days a week she spends kneeling in the bush, tugging out weeds to fulfil her “mutual obligations”. That is, she weeds in putative exchange for a benefit that has virtually flatlined since the early 1990s. And, yes, I felt dismayed about her predicament partly on account of her age. But no-one deserves to live in poverty.
There was anger, betrayal and real desperation in the air, but there was also warmth, a sense of community and lashings of grim humour. One mother wore a T-shirt with this slogan: “I am contributing to society by not raising a dickhead.”
Indeed.
Should Albanese wind up his public housing upbringing schtick? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
I am normally a Labour voter, 44 professional earning over 120,000 single parent.
Even I am struggling to pay the rent and food, electricity etc. I would prefer that the stage 3 tax cuts went to either welfare, rental assistance, dental.
If Labor continues this (essentially) right wing posture, then I am changing to the Greens.
A Labor voter in Australia!
Well said JT.
The weekend’s, Morrison-like, announcement of federal funding for the AFL stadium is more evidence that ALL federal government spending decisions are political, NEVER economic. These neoliberal governments can always find the coin to fund Australians fighting in another American war, the latest toys for the armed forces, or a tax cut for those already doing well in society, while telling Australians that an increase in Jobseeker is unaffordable, as is the proper funding of Medicare, Education, and Public Housing.
Albanese has seized the debate over the proper funding of public housing as a great opportunity to savage The Greens, he’d rather politicise the issue than attend to it. He used to love fighting Tories, evidently, it’s far more comfortable being one. Class Traitor.
You should’ve switched years ago. Leftism in Labor is a mirage.
When I skimmed that the first time it registered as “outrage”. 😀
If Maryanne was smiling down on Albanese on election night I wonder what expressions she’s beaming down upon him now? Always an act of grubby political bullshittery to invoke the sainted Madonna in trying to pump up your cred with the prols.
I’m afraid the “born and raised in a humpy in coonabarrawoggabri” schtick is wearing a bit thin after 20 years……………………..
Well, it was Camperdown in inner Sydney, but we get your drift.
It has been pointed out that albos mums position would be very different now. She would probably not be eligible to receive the dsp, nor would she necessarily be able to be in public housing. Sort it better albo.
The main reason unemployment benefit is so far behind the pension is the indexation method is much more favourable for pensioners I think since the Howard years and over time has created a larger gap.
All the discussion has been about increasing the unemployment benefit but as well improving indexation would help over time. But nobody has been talking about it.
Someone more learned then me might be able to do the calculations more accurately, but when Albo’s mum was on the invalid pension it was about a third of the average income of a person, today the job seeker payment is around a sixth of average income.
In Albo’s mums day public and community housing was about 4.9% of the housing stock, its now 3.8%, that makes a difference.
This isn’t a full proof analysis given rent subsidies and family benefits,, but it’s safe to say in Albo’s youth we looked after the vulnerable much more than we do today.
I don’t know if it’s true, but I read that her Rheumatoid Arthritis would still mean the PM’s would have to fulfill her “mutual obligations”.
.,. PM’s morher
PM’s mother
When Albanese first started telling his repetitive anecdote he was contrasting his upbringing with those of the ‘born to rule’ government members. It worked then.
Now that he is in government, his “I grew up in public housing with a mother who received a disability pension” is more likely to invoke envy than sympathy. “If your family was found to be worthy to be granted a public housing home, why are people this century suddenly undeserving of the opportunities that you had?”
Ah, the good old days!