The grassroots campaign to increase welfare payments for the unemployed received a boost on June 12 from the national body that represents councils across Australia.
The Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) overwhelmingly voted in support of a motion calling on the federal government to increase the Newstart Allowance, the Centrelink payment for unemployed people.
Across South Australia, local governments are sticking up for residents who are out of work and living in poverty. This is part of a grassroots campaign being led by the with support from SA Council of Social Service and Uniting Communities.
Job agencies are the government-funded organisations tasked with helping unemployed people find work.
There is growing evidence suggesting this 鈥渉elp鈥 consists of the following:
It would surprise the federal Coalition government 鈥 that assumes we dislike welfare recipients as much as it does 鈥 that one of its biggest problems at the start of the year is the Centrelink debt fiasco.
Over the past six months, 170,000 people received debt notices from Centrelink, with the number gradually rising to 20,000 a week.
By comparison, .
As part of this year's Anti-Poverty Week, a conference in South Australia A looked at how a lack of jobs is changing the nature of unemployment into an increasingly long-term phenomenon.
Low-income people, activists, community workers and others will gather in Adelaide on October 21 and 22 for聽, a two-day Anti-Poverty Week conference.
The event 鈥 organised by Anti-Poverty Network SA, a grassroots group composed of welfare recipients struggling with poverty and joblessness 鈥 promises to be one of the largest Anti-Poverty Week events in the country.
An extraordinary, radical experiment in welfare policy will begin on March 15 in the small town of Ceduna and several remote Aboriginal communities in south-western South Australia.
