Many were left puzzled by the recent federal budget by Labor Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, with its projected surplus of $9.3 billion.
Why were JobSeeker recipients left trying to exist on just $385 a week? It is $200 below the Henderson poverty line, which is a measurement of poverty developed by Professor Ronald Henderson.
They can barely manage to pay rent as well as buy food, let alone clothes or anything else.
There are around three quarters of a million Australians on this allowance. Some have been on it for ten years.
The sad fact is very many people are simply incapable of working, whether through physical, mental or emotional disability.
The term ‘jobseeker’ that everybody accepts as normal now, is a prejudicial term introduced by the Morrison government four years ago.
It implies that every person on these benefits is actively seeking a job, when for a significant number of people that simply is not possible.
It goes back to the early days of the hard right Abbott Liberal-Nationals administration, when Treasurer Joe Hockey demonised people out of work. He said at the time: ‘The average working Australian, be they a cleaner, a plumber or teacher, is working one month full-time each year just to pay for the welfare of another Australian’.
He added: ‘We must reward the lifters and discourage the leaners’. That brutal attitude led to the catastrophic Robodebt scheme and destruction of so many lives.
This cruel division of Australians into ‘us and them’ has effectively continued with this latest mean budget. The budget surplus alone would more than lift all the three quarters of a million people out of work above the poverty line, with a billion to spare.
The unemployment rate is also rising, as engineered by the Reserve Bank, to keep inflation in check.
Telstra has just announced plans to sack 2,800 employees, as the CEO, Vicki Brady, pockets $5.25m in pay and bonuses.
As has been demonstrated by the former boss of QANTAS, Alan Joyce, employees of this once state-owned airline are now just dispensable pawns in the corporate game.
Profits vs wellbeing
Corporate profits always take precedence over the livelihood of employees.
Directors regard shareholders’ interests as paramount, even though this is not specifically stated in the Corporations Act 2001.
The Corporations Act 2001 is outdated, and needs urgent revision to give higher priority to employees, as well as responsibility of corporations towards the environment.
Currently, corporations virtually control governments of both political persuasions, assisted by multi-million dollar donations to the major parties.
Neither Labor nor Liberal will want to put that at risk, so reforms to the Corporations Act 2001 will in reality only happen if the government of the day has to rely on support of crossbenchers in both houses of parliament to get legislation passed.
The homeless also received no joy from this budget.
There’s no urgent plan of any sort to house them, even in temporary housing – and winter is coming. The number of desperate homeless people is increasing in our shire.
As we likely head into recession and the jobless rate rises inexorably, the situation will get significantly worse.
Obviously, it takes time to build community housing with the income from the $10b social housing fund, set up by Labor, plus the extra two billion dollars added to gain Greens’ support, after much argy-bargy and name calling.
Tiny homes to the rescue
There are other options in the meantime, and one is tiny homes.
They are self-contained and far cheaper and quicker than building permanent dwellings.
There are manufacturers of moveable self-contained solar powered tiny houses, including in Byron Shire. They could do with a helping hand to produce these in numbers, at a fraction of the cost of building houses.
Siting tiny homes would need to be addressed in consultation with local government and landholders.
Some countries are providing powered warm sleeping pods for up to two people to keep the homeless safe, especially in winter. These can be produced for around $1,000 each using recycled materials.
The $2.6b earmarked this year in the budget for the ridiculously wasteful AUKUS nuclear submarines would provide over 20,000 tiny homes to house a sixth of the homeless people in this country.
As well as the desperately poor, unemployed and homeless, Australia’s public health system is in tatters. It’s common for sick and injured people to wait for eight hours and more in hospital emergency waiting rooms all over Australia.
This also needs urgent funding.
There’s no valid reason or excuse to leave jobseekers well below the poverty line, and not to look after the most vulnerable in our society as a top priority.
There’s no actual need to have a budget surplus to try to prove the government’s economic credentials to the conservative media.
The decision to do so is a political decision, not an economic one.
♦ Richard Jones is a former NSW MLC and is now a ceramicist.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
