The Greens have backed calls from the social services sector to save Ask Izzy, after the Albanese Government pulled the plug on the vital navigation service which helps connect thousands of Australians every year with housing, domestic violence, emergency relief and disability support services.
Labor cut support for Ask Izzy in May’s budget, with funding running out on June 30. Just $6 million over three years will help secure this service and ensure Ask Izzy will be there for people with timely connection to support.
As stated by Greens spokesperson on Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:
“Labor’s decision to wrench funding away from Ask Izzy is another baffling move from a government that seems hopelessly out of touch with just how bad things are for a growing number of Australians.
“At a time when more people than ever are in desperate need of support from community organisations and service providers, cutting funding to such a critical service seems especially cruel and utterly unnecessary.
“Under Prime Minister Albanese, Labor has rationed our aged care system to the point where older people are dying on waitlists; they’ve chosen to let jobseekers die from poverty at almost ten times the rate of people not on welfare payments; and they’re cutting NDIS supports from hundreds of thousands of disabled people.
“The only thing holding up Australia’s underfunded systems of care at the moment are unpaid carers, volunteers, friends and family who are pushed to the brink alongside the people they support.
“The Albanese Government is extorting the goodwill of our communities because they’re too gutless to take on the billionaires and the big corporations and make them pay their fair share of tax.”
Lines attributed to Senator Jordon Steele-John, Australian Greens Spokesperson for Disability Rights, the NDIS, Health and Youth:
“Cutting funding for Ask Izzy is just so short-sighted. Millions of times a year, people use it to find the support services available in their local area.
“And right when the Government is changing the NDIS rules and making it harder for people to navigate the system, they’re taking away another way for people to find help.
“For young people, disabled people and people doing it tough, Ask Izzy can be a lifeline.
“We should be making it easier for people to get support, not pulling the rug out from under them.
“The government should reinstate their funding.”
