Struggling in Severe Poverty: Voices of Those Who Feel Overlooked by the Budget

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While this year’s federal budget was sold as a win for everyday Australians, some of those among the hardest hit by the cost of living crisis say they’ve been overlooked and left in “deep poverty”.

is being promised by the Albanese government, should it be reelected in May’s poll, to save millions of workers $536 a year when the measure is fully implemented in 2027.

Advocates of those on welfare assistance, who’d long been calling for an increase to the Centrelink payments, say they’ve been without a proper income “to survive”.

Welfare recipients ‘betrayed’

Disability Support Pension recipient Kristin O’Connell, a spokesperson with the Antipoverty Centre, said the $150 yearly energy bill relief would do little amid rising energy costs.

“This is an irresponsible budget that once again has betrayed millions of welfare recipients and left us in deep poverty,” O’Connell said.

“For many of us, life is harder now than it was three years ago, and this budget does nothing to change that.”

Jobseeker recipient Avery Howard said incremental changes won’t help the people who have been struggling the most under the weight of the cost of living crisis.

“With this budget, they have instead chosen cruelty yet again. All payments need to be raised above the poverty line as an immediate priority.”

The Australian Council of Social Services, which welcomed investments in health, public education and care services, said it was “astounded” that the centrepiece of the budget was more dollars for everyone, “except those with the least”.

The Australian Council of Social Service’s Cassandra Goldie said people experiencing poverty have pleaded with the government for years to improve social security payments.

“The centrepiece of the budget tonight is a promise of more tax cuts, which will go right up the income scale to help people on the very highest incomes in the country, and at the same time, we have nothing to help people with the very least,” Goldie said on Tuesday.

Women’s safety organisations disappointed

Women’s safety organisation Full Stop Australia had been calling for funding to assist with its demands for trauma support services.

Chief executive Karen Bevan said the budget failed to prioritise combating violence against women.

“This budget is all about addressing cost of living, but what about the cost to women and children living with sexual, domestic and family violence? This doesn’t seem to be an urgent focus.”

No To Violence, which works with organisations to help end men’s use of family violence, was also critical of the budget.

“We are in the middle of a national family violence emergency,” CEO Phillip Ripper said.

“If the Commonwealth government is serious about addressing this, it should have shown it tonight — but what we saw was previously announced commitments.”

‘Young people are almost mentioned nowhere’

Ashley Horton from the National Union of Students questioned why there was little mention of younger people in the budget.

“So the prime minister said that in this election, it would be about the next generation — [but] young people are almost mentioned nowhere in the budget,” Horton said.

“They need to be thinking about the students who are currently having to think about their grumbling stomachs over their studies.”

Advocates welcome childcare progress

While the budget didn’t offer any additions when it comes to childcare reform, advocates in the sector welcome the government’s progress towards a universal childcare system, including three days of subsidised early childhood education.

Georgie Dent from The Parenthood described the investment as “historic”.

“We know that when children have access to high-quality early education and care, they do much better over the course of their lives,” she said.

“We believe that every child should be entitled to this opportunity. The federal government has made a commitment to ultimately building out a universal, high-quality, early education and care system that is simple and affordable for families.”

A ‘modest budget’ for businesses

The Australian Industry Group described it as a “modest budget” that won’t “shift the economic dial for Australia or Australians”.

The group said it was concerned about the banning of non-compete clauses for most employees, which are often used to stop workers from switching from one employer to an industry competitor.

“[The budget] doesn’t do anything to boost productivity, to boost investment and to drive growth,” chief executive Innes Willox said.

“Secondly, the decision to get rid of non-compete clauses for most Australian workers is also a deep concern to Australian business.”

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar described the banning of non-complete clauses as “heavy-handed”.

“This is something that really will affect, particularly a lot of smaller businesses who invest in time to train their staff to pass on their intellectual property.

“They then face the risk that if those staff move on, they can go to a competitor, and very quickly you’re at a competitive disadvantage, in many cases, if you’re just a small business.”

Health investment welcome, calls for reform continue

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) welcomed the health investments in the budget, but said more needed to be done.

“Tonight, it was good to see what we’ve been promised printed in black and white. We’ve seen huge investments in Medicare and in general practice,” federal president Danielle McMullen said on Tuesday.

McMullen said the AMA was particularly supportive of the workforce measures and women’s health measures.

But she said a reform of the underlying structure of Medicare is still needed, along with stronger investments in nurses and allied health in general practice.

McMullen also called for a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, describing this as a “missed opportunity”.

“Australia is falling behind the rest of the world, and this much-needed measure, despite having the recommendation of a parliamentary committee, was not put in place and we do think that it is a way for the government to have generated much-needed revenue, while also protecting the health of Australians,” she said.

How did the Coalition react?

Opposition treasury spokesperson Angus Taylor described it as “a budget for the next five weeks, not the next five years”.

“This is a budget for an election, not one for our country’s future prosperity,” he said in a statement.

“At a time when living standards have suffered the biggest collapse on record and when the security environment is the most dangerous since the Second World War, Labor’s budget has failed to deal with the economic and national security challenges our country faces.”