It's time to end the war on the poor.
For far too long successive governments, with more than a helping hand from the tabloid media, have scapegoated low income workers and welfare recipients. The demonisation of people, the labelling of them as bludgers has marginalised a large section of the community who have, for a variety of reasons have been failed by the system that should be there to help them.
It's been a political ploy; a smoke and mirror trick to create villains in the eyes of voters.
Each of us can fall onto hard times, and many will in their lifetimes. Punishing those people through systemic processes such as "Robo-Debt" and Indue Cards pushes people to despair. Forcing people to try to survive below the poverty line on a Newstart allowance that has been stagnant for years is not an incentive to find work, but a further kick in the teeth. It is the complete antithesis of the Aussie fair go. Over the years it could be safe to say many hundreds of people have ended their own lives or turned to substance abuse due to the marginalisation they have felt.
If we want to live up to our much-talked about ideals of a "fair go", our nation needs to reassess how we treat those who are doing it tough.
At the AWP, we do not believe in kicking people when they are down. We believe a helping hand is the honourable thing to do. People on welfare are in need of policies that give pathways to employment and self sufficiency. We have a range of positive policy ideas that will lift people out of poverty through worthwhile employment. Our Universal Job Guarantee policy would have a dramatic effect upon unemployment. It would help create worthwhile and sustained local jobs.
Our other policies are aimed at helping working people and people who are low income earners - we sincerely believe that it by lifting the financial opportunities of each worker, we can generate a healthy economy and a civil society. We have seen successive governments cut back on welfare spending - gutting many worthwhile programs which were proven to have a successful outcome for those in need. We at the AWP feel it is time to reevaluate the hard-hearted, close fisted attitude to helping people living in poverty. We must do all we can to eradicate poverty, to end suffering and to lift up our brothers and sisters who find themselves on hard times.
As a community we must reject those who would chastise and marginalise people for being poor. To have a compassionate society is a worthwhile goal and for the AWP, one which we will advocate strongly for.
We are not bleeding hearts; we are just people who realise helping others in need is the decent thing to do.
Homelessness:
In a nation as wealthy as Australia, no person should be homeless.
Homelessness has numerous causes; unemployment, underemployment, mental health issues, other specific circumstances or simply bad luck. Whatever the reasons, there should always be options for people to obtain shelter and a place to call home.
We would support a national homelessness strategy to firstly acknowledge the issue and to plan to find solutions. Our view would be to seek the opinions of experts and to strive for a multi-partisan agreement. All tiers of government would need to be participants in this strategy as well as stakeholders including people with lived experience of homelessness.
Beyond any national strategy, we would seek interim measures to reduce the pressures or risk of homelessness. These would include an increase in the Commonwealth rental assistance allowance, incentives for people to lease out vacant properties, "mini" housing projects, the use of vacant or underused government buildings, rental caps in select areas, increases into the funding of public housing and programs to expedite entry into home ownership by low wage earners with "half-mortgage" subsidies (where the government purchases half the mortgage with subsidised repayment options).
There may be more and better options to address homelessness. Our goal is to at least begin the conversation to explore those options.
For far too long successive governments, with more than a helping hand from the tabloid media, have scapegoated low income workers and welfare recipients. The demonisation of people, the labelling of them as bludgers has marginalised a large section of the community who have, for a variety of reasons have been failed by the system that should be there to help them.
It's been a political ploy; a smoke and mirror trick to create villains in the eyes of voters.
Each of us can fall onto hard times, and many will in their lifetimes. Punishing those people through systemic processes such as "Robo-Debt" and Indue Cards pushes people to despair. Forcing people to try to survive below the poverty line on a Newstart allowance that has been stagnant for years is not an incentive to find work, but a further kick in the teeth. It is the complete antithesis of the Aussie fair go. Over the years it could be safe to say many hundreds of people have ended their own lives or turned to substance abuse due to the marginalisation they have felt.
If we want to live up to our much-talked about ideals of a "fair go", our nation needs to reassess how we treat those who are doing it tough.
At the AWP, we do not believe in kicking people when they are down. We believe a helping hand is the honourable thing to do. People on welfare are in need of policies that give pathways to employment and self sufficiency. We have a range of positive policy ideas that will lift people out of poverty through worthwhile employment. Our Universal Job Guarantee policy would have a dramatic effect upon unemployment. It would help create worthwhile and sustained local jobs.
Our other policies are aimed at helping working people and people who are low income earners - we sincerely believe that it by lifting the financial opportunities of each worker, we can generate a healthy economy and a civil society. We have seen successive governments cut back on welfare spending - gutting many worthwhile programs which were proven to have a successful outcome for those in need. We at the AWP feel it is time to reevaluate the hard-hearted, close fisted attitude to helping people living in poverty. We must do all we can to eradicate poverty, to end suffering and to lift up our brothers and sisters who find themselves on hard times.
As a community we must reject those who would chastise and marginalise people for being poor. To have a compassionate society is a worthwhile goal and for the AWP, one which we will advocate strongly for.
We are not bleeding hearts; we are just people who realise helping others in need is the decent thing to do.
Homelessness:
In a nation as wealthy as Australia, no person should be homeless.
Homelessness has numerous causes; unemployment, underemployment, mental health issues, other specific circumstances or simply bad luck. Whatever the reasons, there should always be options for people to obtain shelter and a place to call home.
We would support a national homelessness strategy to firstly acknowledge the issue and to plan to find solutions. Our view would be to seek the opinions of experts and to strive for a multi-partisan agreement. All tiers of government would need to be participants in this strategy as well as stakeholders including people with lived experience of homelessness.
Beyond any national strategy, we would seek interim measures to reduce the pressures or risk of homelessness. These would include an increase in the Commonwealth rental assistance allowance, incentives for people to lease out vacant properties, "mini" housing projects, the use of vacant or underused government buildings, rental caps in select areas, increases into the funding of public housing and programs to expedite entry into home ownership by low wage earners with "half-mortgage" subsidies (where the government purchases half the mortgage with subsidised repayment options).
There may be more and better options to address homelessness. Our goal is to at least begin the conversation to explore those options.