On welfare, can Albanese rescue his relationship with the past?

On the night of Labor’s election in May last year, Anthony Albanese paid tribute to his mother, the late Maryanne Ellery, who raised him alone in inner-city public housing.

Ellery suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Her source of income was the invalid pension, an earlier version of today’s disability support pension. That night, Albanese felt her “beaming down” on his election as prime minister.

Almost a year later and Albanese’s deployment of his personal narrative is losing credibility. He needs to rescue his very public relationship with his past, and the federal budget next week is likely to include two changes to this effect.

Changes to JobSeeker

On Monday, news broke that the government looks likely to increase the JobSeeker rate for recipients aged over 55. The Australian Unemployed Workers Union (AUWU) calls it an “opportunistic brain fart”. To my knowledge, no-one has been pushing for this. The excellent Antipoverty Centre has crunched the data: this would leave 684,360 people languishing on the JobSeeker rate of about $50 a day.

In a rental crisis which is unlikely to ease for years, raising the rate for some and not others is pernicious politics. Social security recipients under 55 also need to eat, should be able to attend to their mental and physical health, hold extensive responsibilities to others, use public transport, and much more.

Changes to parenting payment

The second likely change is more welcome. The Howard government’s 2006 welfare to work reforms altered the eligibility rules for the parenting payment, which offers financial assistance to principal carers with parenting responsibilities for a young child. New recipients of the single-parent payment were moved on to the unemployment support once their youngest child turned eight. They also became subject to its punitive conditions, which might include work for the dole.

In 2012, then-prime minister Julia Gillard ended the grandfathering of the Howard government’s changes. Previously, those receiving the parenting payment before 2006 were exempt from the changes, and allowed to remain on the payment until their youngest child turned 16.

Gillard ended this arrangement the same day she cemented her liberal feminist legacy by delivering her fabled misogyny speech. This speech has been printed on to tea towels. Meanwhile, Gillard condemned many single mums to poverty as they were abruptly moved to the lower rate. JobSeeker is $204 less per fortnight than the single-parent payment. 

The budget looks likely to include an adjustment to the eligibility rule. The Albanese government has indicated it is preparing to make changes to the single-parent payment, with Guardian Australia reporting recipients will soon be eligible to stay on the support until their youngest child turns 14 (there has been speculation it would be lifted to 12).

This is significant considering the government’s broader focus on women’s work. The Albanese government has launched an inquiry into the cost of childcare, which is undeniably a problem, especially given the low wages the sector’s feminised workforce commands. The childcare question is consistently linked to productivity — time spent caring is represented as a drag on productivity.

The message is that all our lives should be monopolised by waged work. Reforming the parenting payment eligibility would entail meaningful recognition of the value of the work of sole parenting against the grain of the relentless emphasis on waged work. The advocacy of the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children on this issue has been tireless and persuasive.

The economic upshot

Certainly these two more targeted initiatives are cheaper than the government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee’s recommendation to raise the JobSeeker rate to 90% of the age pension at the cost of $24 billion over the next four years. This is the opportunism the AUWU points to. 

“Cheaper.” What a dismal equation. Dignity and, say, meals, for all are too expensive? Acquiring a fleet of submarines with a price tag of $368 billion is not? Why are the $243 billion in stage three tax cuts over the next decade — almost 80% of which will benefit those earning over $120,000 a year — off limits? Fossil fuel subsidies don’t figure anywhere in this conversation?

Fraser-era hostility to “dole bludgers” revolved around a masculine image of work-shy youth. Today a JobSeeker recipient is likely to be “older, to be a woman and importantly to have a …  chronic illness or disabilities”. Is the Albanese government banking on this new reality to arouse public empathy in the way youth unemployment historically hasn’t?

The human toll

Last Friday, I attended a protest at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s electoral office. I went in solidarity: the protest was organised by the AUWU and centred the voices of recipients of JobSeeker and disability support pension payments. Speakers described the struggle to exist on miserly income support and shared their analysis of this urgent political moment. The takeaway: JobSeeker must be raised for all, and it needs to be done now.

At the protest, I met a JobSeeker recipient who is over 55. We chatted about the two days a week she spends kneeling in the bush, tugging out weeds to fulfil her “mutual obligations”. That is, she weeds in putative exchange for a benefit that has virtually flatlined since the early 1990s. And, yes, I felt dismayed about her predicament partly on account of her age. But no-one deserves to live in poverty.

There was anger, betrayal and real desperation in the air, but there was also warmth, a sense of community and lashings of grim humour. One mother wore a T-shirt with this slogan: “I am contributing to society by not raising a dickhead.”

Indeed. 

Should Albanese wind up his public housing upbringing schtick? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.