Thread by @kristin8X

ok I’m fiiinally sitting down to read the budget papers the whole way through

Please reward my efforts by coming to our NON-BORING budget reply reply tomorrow night

Fuck #TheirBudget, it’s our lives that matter

RSVP here (everything is free unless you want to pay): eventbrite.com.au/e/forum-their-…

Ok so we know the “commercial in confidence” argument is the bullshit excuse they use to hide how much money they’re burning on #CashlessDebitCard “trials”, but how, HOW, can they pretend AAT cases are CIC? Somebody help me out here. #BTPM #Budget2021 @aimnau

this is not *all* the money they will spend bullying poor folks over minor accounting errors, just the little bit for the Attorney-General to spend. she prob requested it specifically since she doesn’t get to punish unemployed people in her day-to-day job much anymore.

an assortment of things that won’t do what they say on the tin

look, “savings”

when will we start adding up the cost of the harm done

why even have this line item

(the second one is the rebranded CDP)

It’s so lucky that people don’t food or a place to live until they’ve been here four years. A miracle of science.

Huh.

All this increased support, so kindly

I think we need to be talking more about how this WON’T help

It’s not actually more money they’re just putting back money they already cut. I know this cos @damiyahayden is the expert and she told me so.

🎉

solved it @cait__kelly

god there is so much absurd shit in here it is very difficult to refrain from posting

nothing good can ever come of myGov

this is just going to be another disastrous waste of public money, with private training orgs that offer pointless courses profiting while uni and TAFE are gutted

unemployed folks WANT meaningful help, not this

THIS 👏 NEEDS 👏 MORE 👏 COVERAGE 👏

✅ more bullying people into self-employment
✅ more job agency cash for covid
✅ more Highly Successful job fairs to lure poor people into the defence force
✅ more Highly Successful relocation assistance to lure poor people into unsafe, exploitative farm labour jobs

👎👎👎

huge if true

side note: I can’t think of anything that will fill unemployed folks w more dread than “intensive support” from their job agency

for DES folks: countdown to 1 Jan when you can escape your provider

check out @mjelmas’s article on this huge saving – the gov will treat ppl equitably by making sure *everyone* has to wait longer to get a payment, instead of making sure everyone can get it when they’re eligible

literally just stop forcing millions of people to live in poverty and exposing them to terrorising job agencies / dangerous ‘mutual’ obligations you fucking monsters

love these open admissions that they’ve been doing something SHIT

overall the gov is banking a saving here, spending even less money on remote communities

I have no faith they’ll replace CDP w something actually good, but these communities need and deserve that money + more

Just no words for this cruelty

The “trials” apparently going to continue at least two years beyond the current life of the scheme, which sunsets in December 2022

The gov has learned nothing from the damage done + lives lost from it’s debt recovery activities

@lukehgomes on the absurdity: “the taskforce was provided $10.7m in the 2019-20 financial year, and recovered $9.22m in welfare payments over the same period” theguardian.com/australia-news…

This leaves people more than $15 a week FURTHER BELOW the poverty line than they were before COVID #HPL

Guess this explains what they did with the $200 million saving from making NEST participants wait longer for payments @mjelmas

And thx to @lukehgomes for keeping an eye on what’s happening w DobSeeker – cheeky $2.5m for it. A reminder that <0.001% of ppl refused work in 2019

Your reminder that this is NOT new funding but replaces earlier funding cuts, relentlessly scrutinised by @damiyahayden

Far as we know they only seem to be closing Centrelink offices. Probs just using this money to get out into the community spruiking the cashless debit card I guess @aimnau

I am fascinated by this. @lukehgomes have you ever looked at how/why this one community has managed to secure this arrangement?

And here’s $7 billion they ALREADY planned to spend on unemployment payments.

So simple to just start lifting payments above the poverty line by keeping this money for unemployed people. But no. Cruelty and austerity is the only choice. #BTPM #HPL

Every year they do this and every year I will point out that the vast majority of this is spending on pensions, not unemployment payments. These used to be represented separately, but the gov realised they could boost their demonisation of unemployed folks by combining the two.

Incl the covid supplement + w highest ever unemployment, JS payments were about 16% of ALL social security spending. Age pension was 28% in same year. This yr JS will be just 10% of social security spending, or THREE PERCENT of total spending.

It’s not that we can’t help older folks and disabled folks. It’s simply that we can also help unemployed folks to survive. I can’t stand this.

This is not an investment in unemployed people.

You will all be relieved to know that I have run out of time to continue reading the #Budget2021 papers. May your TL return to normal programming.