FCA joins ACOSS and the community sector in campaign to stop cuts
Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) is putting its support, loud and clear, behind the ACOSS-led campaign calling on the Government to stop demonising people on social welfare and reverse planned cuts to social security benefits.
FCA is one of the many community organisations that signed a joint statement calling out the inhumanity behind nine proposed welfare cuts (the joint statement is included below).
Financial counsellors provide advice to people struggling to pay their bills and debts. For many of the people we see, a major contributor to their financial hardship is the abysmal level of Centrelink benefits.
It is impossible to get back on top of financial problems when you simply don’t have enough money to live on in the first place.
One of the problems is that we think this is all about other people. But the truth is any of us could find ourselves vulnerable at some point in our lives. We all get sick, we all get old and some of us will find ourselves out of work. And if you’re lucky enough to escape the financial implications of those events, not all of your family and friends will when the same things happen to them.
The test should be: is this how I would want to be treated or how I would want my family to be treated?
The answer is no and these cuts should be opposed.
(The comments above can be attributed to Fiona Guthrie, CEO of FCA).
Joint Statement from the Community Sector
Strengthen the social safety net. Stop tearing it apart.
As leaders from the community and health sectors, we unite to condemn repeated attacks by the federal government on people living in poverty.
We stand together to say enough is enough. Social security is a right.
We condemn this government’s latest attempts to dismantle Australia’s social safety net by cutting income support payments for people already living below the poverty line.
We are a wealthy country and we should take pride in treating each other with dignity. We should take pride in maintaining and strengthening our social safety net for everyone when they need it most.
The social safety net is there to support us if we lose our job, get sick, undertake study, care for children or someone else, have a disability or need support when we get older.
It is an entitlement, not a crime, to receive an income support payment in Australia.
This government must stop treating people on low income as though they are doing something wrong or breaking the law, just because they are receiving a payment.
Poverty exists.
We see it every day when we meet families who cannot afford to put a a roof over their heads and single parents who skip a meal so their children can attend a school excursion. We see it with people locked out of paid work who cannot afford three meals a day, and with people living in darkness because the cost of energy has become a luxury.
Three million people already live below the poverty line in Australia, of whom 731,000 are children.
Yet there is legislation before parliament which aims to further cut income support payments, including for people studying or training, people who are bereaved, people who are unemployed, single parents, people with a disability, and older people who have migrated to Australia.
There is also legislation before parliament to cut the $38-per-day unemployment payment, even though it is well below the poverty line.
We call on government to focus on strengthening our social safety net to reduce poverty and inequality in Australia. We can begin by lifting allowance payments by at least $55 per week to give people in need a helping hand, rather than pushing them over.
Let’s help people out of poverty, not send more people under.
Media Contact: Fiona Guthrie, 0402 426 835
[email protected]