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The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, has launched a report arguing that most unemployed Australians are “desperate for employment” and that their distress is a “national disgrace”.
According to the report
by Catholic Social Services Victoria, Surviving, not Living: Disadvantage in Melbourne, the ‘trickle-down’ economic policies of the past 25 years have left up to 2.5 million Australians in poverty or unemployed.
Fr Joe Caddy, executive director of Catholic Social Services, said: “It is astonishing that in a country as wealthy as Australia, so many people are forced to endure such hardship and poverty ... We must not
continue to ignore this cruel injustice.”
Surviving, not Living calls for a national inquiry into poverty, the lifting of the Newstart allowance by $20 a week and the modification of the Work for the Dole
scheme.
It also recommends that more government funding be made available to meet the health care needs of low-income and socially isolated people, in particular the mentally ill.
The report shows that
people interviewed for the study “were overwhelmingly desperate” for employment so they could find security in their lives and meet their responsibilities as carers and parents.
Official figures state there
are seven unemployed people for every advertised vacancy.
Many of these suffer learning difficulties and inadequate education, chronic ill-health, lack of secure and adequate housing and deep poverty.
Depression and trauma are two of the effects of prolonged unemployment.
To add insult to injury, the poor and unemployed are increasingly blamed for their plight, but the structural causes of poverty and not
welfare dependency is the real problem, says Catholic Social Services.
The report said that income support is not sufficient to provide suitable accommodation, food and health care, thereby leaving carers and
children particularly vulnerable.
It also found that the process of obtaining and receiving the allowance was onerous and that penalties were severe.
Breaching of allowance occurred for many people
because they changed addresses or were uncontactable, the report said.
It concluded that society and governments had gravely failed these people, and needed to respond to their plight more vigorously through
economic policies and social supports.
Surviving, not Living can be obtained from Catholic Social Services Victoria for $6 (including postage) at 383 Albert St, East Melbourne, Vic 3002, or on the
web at www.css.org.au
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