“This budget is a surplus of scatter gun approaches and tinkering around the edges. 
 
“This is a budget that continues the ongoing disdain this Government has for people who have been doing it tough for a long time and for whom things have only got worse due to the global pandemic and recession: people on income support, older women, young people, single parents and disabled people.
 

The Greens say Employment Minister Mr Robert’s cruel comments on the ‘lifestyle’ of people on JobSeeker are not based in any realm of reality in which Australians are living.

“It’s just nonsensical to tell people to get a job when in March there were 238, 700 jobs available and there are 1.5 million people on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments”, Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

Today the Government gagged the Senate and allowed no time to even debate the first so-called real permanent increase in the Jobseeker Payment since 1994. 

The Greens say that unemployed workers and people living in poverty have been very clear that they want to see their representatives in Parliament supporting and campaigning for them, doing everything they can to increase the rate of JobSeeker above the poverty line. 

“People living in poverty in this cruel punitive income support system feel isolated, they feel abandoned and want people to be vocal in their condemnation of this joke of an increase in the rate of Jobseeker”, Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

The Greens have said that Mr Morrison’s continued attacks on people on income support is cruel and demonising of people in our community who are doing it the toughest.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt said that his electorate of Melbourne was one of the hardest hit by every reduction to JobSeeker, and that Scott Morrison's actions demonstrated he didn't care about the genuine causes of unemployment.

Lines from Leader of the Australian Greens and Member for Melbourne Adam Bandt MP:

"Yesterday the Senate supported my motion calling on the Government to immediately revise its JobSeeker announcement and urgently increase the Jobseeker Payment to be above the poverty line", Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said. 
 
“In supporting my motion the Senate has agreed that the Government's proposed $3.57 a day increase to JobSeeker is not enough. 
 
“I strongly urge Senators to support amendments to the bill in the Senate to increase the rate.
 

Today is an extremely distressing day for the 1.5 million people on the JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments who have now had confirmation that the Morrison Government has made the cruel decision to condemn them to poverty. 
 
$44 a day is not enough to live on. This will mean people going without meals, without medication, without the funds to pay for heating or cooling.
 
This should not be happening in a country as wealthy as Australia.
 
This is an appalling slap in the face for all those people trying to survive on Jobseeker.
 

The Greens say a so-called employment insurance scheme is an appalling idea and that Mr Morrison is being cruel to people on the Jobseeker payment, drip feeding potential plans for the JobSeeker payment through media leaks.

“This so-called insurance scheme would make an already appalling system worse, further entrenching poverty and homelessness”, Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

“This concept is based on the assumption that has been disproven time and again, that poverty is an incentive to finding work. 

The Greens say Mr Morrison must announce a permanent increase to the Jobseeker payment and guarantee that nobody is worse off under any new system.

“Mr Morrison is once again muddying the waters with a suggestion that the JobSeeker payment could be paid at a flat rate and targeted supplements abolished. A permanent increase to Jobseeker is the highest priority” Australian Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

MYEFO shows yet again that the Liberals are locking in inequality and damage from climate change, the Greens say.

“The economy continues to be underpinned by Government spending, with state governments’ investment in social housing and public transport responsible for a lot of the improved outlook," Greens Economic Justice Spokesperson Senator Nick McKim said.

"But wages growth has been revised down following the Government’s announcement that they will reduce public sector wage increases.”