$25 a week is a cruel joke

The Australian Greens MPs

Today is an extremely distressing day for the 1.5 million people on the JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments who have now had confirmation that the Morrison Government has made the cruel decision to condemn them to poverty.

$44 a day is not enough to live on. This will mean people going without meals, without medication, without the funds to pay for heating or cooling.

This should not be happening in a country as wealthy as Australia.

This is an appalling slap in the face for all those people trying to survive on Jobseeker.

The Government chose to lift people out of poverty when the pandemic hit and now they are choosing to condemn people in our community to live on just $44 a day in the midst of a recession and a pandemic.

This is a cruel decision, not based on evidence about what is best to support people to find work nor what is best for the economy.

We will not stop campaigning until we have an increase that is over the poverty line.

/Public Release. View in full here.