Exposing government policies that fail to address structural disadvantage

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Exposing government policies that fail to address structural disadvantage

Every year in October, the Anti-Poverty Week coalition presents a series of events to educate Australians about the continued prevalence of significant poverty and disadvantage in our community. This year, its agenda is to “halve child poverty by 2030”.

• Philip Mendes

  Professor, Department of Social Work, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

In most years, these anti-poverty events are accompanied by a parliamentary debate where representatives of all political parties promise to do better to address what they respectively define as the specific causes of poverty.

Yet more often than not, little more is actually said or done by those in power. What I’ve previously framed as the great Australian silence about poverty usually reasserts itself.

Nevertheless, one organisation, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), talks and acts on these issues year-round.

It particularly highlights the links between financial poverty and broader forms of social and economic inequality, and rejects the neoliberal notion that poverty is the inevitable outcome of poor decisions by individuals, and hence beyond the control of policymakers.

ACOSS asserts that are major ongoing structural and systemic causes of poverty that go way beyond any individual choices by those living in poverty.

A further ACOSS argument is that when governments make choices to avoid addressing those structural causes (for example, by retaining the JobSeeker payment for the unemployed well below the poverty line), there may well be immediate savings to the budget.

But equally, there are also measurable (and often larger) long-term economic and social costs to the individuals and families concerned, along with the wider community, as a result of chronic disadvantage, increased homelessness, poor physical and mental health, and higher levels of crime and criminal justice system involvement.

‘A fair, inclusive and sustainable Australia’

ACOSS was formed in 1956 as a peak coordinating body of non-government welfare services. Many of its founding members were large religious charities such as the Salvation Army, the Church of England in Australia, and the National Catholic Welfare Committee.

But over time, it reframed its role to act as both a peak representative of community and welfare service providers, and an advocate for the interests of low-income and disadvantaged Australians.

Its core vision is for “a fair, inclusive and sustainable Australia where all individuals and communities can participate in and benefit from social and economic life”.

Today, ACOSS has 93 national member organisations, including the eight Councils of Social Service in all states and territories; leading religious and secular welfare agencies; key professional associations and peak bodies that specialise in specific policy areas or population groups; and low-income consumer groups representing the unemployed, single mothers, and those living in poverty or with a disability.

A major strength of ACOSS is that its diverse membership base enables it to capture the real needs and experiences of people living in poverty, and to present real-life evidence concerning the impact of disadvantage on individuals, families and communities in public policy debates.

Several policy areas targeted

ACOSS targets a number of policy areas, ranging from tax and economics to social security and housing.

Here I highlight two long-term policy agendas it’s pursued.

One is to raise the rate of the JobSeeker payment for the unemployed ($47 per day as of 12 October) so it moves recipients above the poverty line.

This advocacy work has included two major campaigns from 2011-13 and 2018-22 aimed at Labor and Liberal-National Coalition governments, respectively.

ACOSS has used a range of strategies in those campaigns, including policy and research reports, petitions, surveys, opinion pieces and press releases, presentations of the lived experience of JobSeeker recipients, submissions to parliamentary inquiries, partnerships with other key interest groups such as trade unions (the ACTU) and business (BCA), and engagement with parliamentarians, particularly from the Australian Greens (and also more recently the independent teals) with whom it shares common ground.

This campaign, now termed “Raise the rate for good”, has remained active during 2022. For example, ACOSS and the University of NSW produced a joint report that documented how the introduction of the Coronavirus Supplement (an extra $275 per week) in May-June 2020 massively reduced poverty levels for those reliant on JobSeeker payments, and equally how the reduction and then removal of that supplement resulted in far higher levels of poverty.

According to ACOSS, that initiative showed that governments had the capacity to significantly reduce poverty and inequality if they had the political will to do so.

In April this year, ACOSS coordinated a National Day of Action whereby policy advocates contacted politicians directly via letters and emails, and also utilised social media, to demand a higher rate of income support and greater investment in social housing to lift the availability of safe and stable accommodation.

Additionally, ACOSS organised a letter signed by more than 60 peak bodies and community organisations that was forwarded to all members of parliament and parliamentary candidates, demanding greater political action to reduce poverty and inequality.

JobSeeker not adequate

ACOSS also commissioned a national poll of 1000 adults during the federal election campaign in May this year that found 76% would not be able to live on the current JobSeeker rate, two-thirds of those surveyed agreed the JobSeeker rate should be raised to $70 a day, and 46% would consider changing their vote to a party that raised JobSeeker above the poverty line, while only 11% would be less likely to do so.

In July, ACOSS conducted a cost-of-living survey of 449 low-income Australians to document the impact of inflation on those struggling to survive on existing levels of income support.

The survey, “How JobSeeker and other income support payments are falling behind the cost of living”, found six out of 10 respondents had reduced their food intake, and a similar number found it difficult to afford basic medicine or medical care.

ACOSS argued that low-income-earners:

“… face impossible choices. No one should have to choose between food and medicine, but these are exactly the choices being forced on people in Australia, one of the world’s wealthiest nations.”

ACOSS has actively encouraged those living in poverty (including by offering media training) to directly share their stories with policymakers.

It argues that the voices of lived-experience advocates – who they term “experts by experience” – should be at the “centre of policy debate and development”.

For example, ACOSS organised four lived-experience experts to speak at the September launch of the JobSeeker survey discussed above, and to share their stories with MPs and multiple media outlets.

ACOSS has advanced a number of evidence-based arguments in favour of raising the rate. One key argument is that a large number of JobSeeker recipients now rely on the payment long-term.

For example, the number on JobSeeker for more than a year in March 2021 was 69%, including 25% for more than five years, and 12% for 10 years or more.

Another argument is that those on JobSeeker cannot afford basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothing, fuel, energy bills, transport, and healthcare.

It asserts that raising the rate would benefit the economy, as those on lower incomes are more likely to spend any increase in payments, driving economic growth, and equally that the existing low rate acts as a barrier to workforce entry, given that entrenched poverty prevents the unemployed from accessing the necessary resources (such as newspapers and/or the internet, public transport, new clothes) to gain employment.

Current tax cuts package ‘unfair’

ACOSS emphasises that political decisions regarding whether or not to increase social security payments reflect a choice between competing policy values and priorities.

It highlights the cost ($16 billion a year) of continuing what they describe as the “unfair” current tax cuts package that will mostly benefit disproportionately male higher-income earners earning above $100,000.

In contrast, it emphasises that raising the JobSeeker rate to $70 per day will cost less (about $8 billion per year), and instead benefit mainly single mothers on low incomes who are the group most needing additional support.

ACOSS insists that tax cuts do little to assist low-income-earners, and the optimal solution would be to “lift incomes and improve access to housing and essential services, for those with the least”.

Another long-term ACOSS policy agenda since 2007 has been to end compulsory income management (IM), whether the BasicsCard or the Cashless Debit Card (CDC).

ACOSS argues IM is:

• Highly expensive

• That there’s no conclusive evidence it enhances outcomes for participants in targeted areas such as addiction, gambling, violence, and socially responsible behaviour

• That it disempowers participants by restricting their agency and choice regarding management of personal finances and spending

• That it was imposed without reasonable consultation with affected communities

• That it’s racially discriminatory in that it disproportionately affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

ACOSS presented written and oral submissions to the senate inquiry into the Labor government’s bill to repeal the Cashless Debit Card (CDC) in August, and its views were widely cited within the report, which recommended support for the abolition of the CDC.

Not surprisingly, ACOSS welcomed the passage of the CDC repeal bill, stating: “This is a long overdue step to removing one of the worst examples of paternalism in our social security system. Cashless debit is a failed policy that discriminates against First Nations people and people on low incomes.”

Although ACOSS has prioritised the inclusion of lived experience voices in policy debates, it hasn’t to date argued specifically for a co-designed approach to social security policy development that would enable the direct participation of low-income Australians in formal decision-making processes.

That approach would necessarily require the creation of a peer support workforce of people with lived experience of poverty based within key government and non-government policy and program institutions, operating in a similar fashion to the significant peer workforces well-established in areas such as mental health, drugs and alcohol, and out-of-home care.

Recently, the Australian Senate announced an inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia, which is scheduled to release its report in October 2023.

This will be the first major Australian poverty inquiry since the 2004 senate inquiry into poverty and financial hardship, and is long overdue.

No doubt ACOSS will play a major role in this inquiry, which will potentially disrupt the longstanding Australian silence about the real-life causes and consequences of poverty.

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