Thread by @lukehgomes

Will be live tweeting today's Senate inquiry hearing on the #jobseeker bill. #auspol

First witnesses are Acoss, welfare recipient Julie Stephen, and the Council of the Ageing.

Acoss's Cass Goldie says the org has serious concerns about the decision to "cut" the level of jobseeker to $44 a day.

Goldie says Acoss is "very troubled" that only a few people have been given the opportunity to speak at today's inquiry.

Julie Stephen, in her 50s, says she is a determined woman who tries her best to stay away from welfare. She says it's "not easy", "you feel like you're worthless ... it's isolating and confidence stripping".

Stephen says poor health meant she had to leave her previous job. She's been applying for lots of jobs since, but she just cannot get a job.

Stephen says she was diagnosed with intensive breast cancer in July last year, her mother and sister had died from the same cancer. Her final stage of chemo was at the end of last December.

Stephen says she was rejected for the DSP last year. She says she also had anxiety and back pain. "There are too many of us who are too sick to work ... but not eligible for the DSP."

Stephen says she can "just manage" on the current jobseeker rate of $715. But she's not sure how she is going to register her car.

She relies on her car to get to treatments and do the shopping. "I'm really worried I won't survive when it gets back to $43.50 a day. My worst is I will have to sell my house."

Stephen asks the committee to reflect on how it is to live on such a low income.

Greens senator Rachel Siewert says Stephen was very brave to share her experience, says it takes a lot of strength to do so.

Stephen says she "be in arrears" when the rate is reduced to $43 a day.

Asked what she will have to forgo, Stephen says she won't be going to meet friends for a coffee, won't buy new clothes. "Things will change a great deal."

Irlam from Cota says the $50pf was a "third" of what conservatives estimates was needed. The biggest challenge for the mature aged unemployed is that people "simply won't work again". They will stay on jobseeker until the pension.

Corey Irlam: "It's not good enough we've only been able to find $25 a week to increase jobseeker."

Goldie says that to lift people on jobseeker over the relative poverty line, a "bare minimum" of $65 a day is needed.

I missed a bit of that because I needed to file a blog post. Next up Ben Phillips and Matthew Gray from ANU.

Ben Phillips says "it's fair to say" there will be small in reduction in poverty in Australia from base rate of $40 a day to $43 a day. He says there was a "very significant' reduction when the $550pf coronavirus supplement was in effect

Phillips says pre-covid poverty rates for people on jobseeker were about 80% before Covid. It reduced to about 25% when the Covid supplement was at its height.

Phillips says for a material reduction in the poverty rate, the jobseeker payment needs to be closer to the poverty line, or above it. If you use the half median measure, that's about $850 a fortnight. If you increase jobseeker about $250pf, that would do it, he says

On the issue of the rate and work incentives, Phillips notes that in the early 90s, jobseeker payment was about 55% of the minimum wage. Now it's 37%. He notes that in the early 90s, people actually generally spent less time on the payments.

Caveats to are that the cohort of people on jobseeker has changes a lot. That is, there are more single parents and people who have health issues and disabilities.

Matt Grudnoff, of the Australia Institute, says they have done research that shows a "negative relationship" between the rate of welfare payments and unemployment rates in OECD countries. That means "it doesn't appear" there is a disincentive to work through higher ... payments".

Paul Zahra, of the Australian Retailers Association, says the organisation is against the jobdobber/dobseeker hotline. He also says the $50pf is way too low, and says a rate closer to the pension would likely be more appropriate.

Zahra says the reduction of jobseeker will affect spending in things like food and pharmaceuticals

On the issue of the cost of a more generous boost to benefits, Grundnoff notes the final stage of the income tax cuts will cost about $18bn a year.

Prof Jon Altman and the Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT are next up.

Altman reducing welfare (from the $550pf supplement to the $50pf permanent increase) is "brutal policy making".