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April 02, 2005
Costello under fire
The best criticism of Peter Costello's defence of the Treasury brief on welfare-to work reform comes from Judi Moylan. She sees the connection between the Howard Government's planned shake-up of welfare-to-work and industrial relations. She says:
"We must make sure people get a decent living wage. We can't have a situation where people are taking home pay of $4 an hour and grinding away for long hours at the expense of their child rearing responsibilities. If our children are not looked after, then you have a huge social cost."
Costello's Treasury brief says that single mums should travel on their pushbikes to where the work is, accept the low rates of pay on offer for casual work, and get the grandparents to volunteer their time to baby sit the children.Families that work together stay together.
Judi Moylan also pointed out the consequences of Cabinet plans to tighten eligibility for the disability pension in terms of the impact of plans would have on those with mental illnesses. She said that:
"Whatever policy is introduced we have to make sure it is adequate for people experiencing mental health problems.If such people were forced to look for jobs it could exacerbate their illness."
And we can add some people with disability would be capable of some work, but they would not be able to work at the level required by the Newstart criteria. Shifting these onto Newstart would mean that they would be unable to meet the various mutual obligation requirements and so they would drop through the welfare net and would then need to be supported by their families.
Is that the Howard Government's brief?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at April 2, 2005 02:10 PM
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