Thread by @JeremyPoxon

THREAD: @AusUnemployment at today's #PovertyInquiry

First, @CatherineCaine reminds the government: "when you were in Opposition, many of your members, including the current PM, made clear...statements about the inadequacy of income support & the need to increase it immediately"

Next, AUWU member Lee-Anne: "Long gone are the days when [Job Service providers] would do anything to assist"

"I still cannot scrape together just a couple of hundred dollars to access training I would dearly love to do" #PovertyInquiry

Andrew, another AUWU member: "I am buying my medication on AfterPay." #PovertyInquiry

(Beginning to think this isn’t a union of privileged, wealthy brats??? but I’ll keep posting clips just to make sure)

Now @RMcCoy22012711 talks about being breached by his job provider because his car broke down. He also talks about being forced into unsafe, under-payed jobs by his provider. #PovertyInquiry

"There's still things I have to go without because the rate of JobSeeker is too low, such as contact lenses...I need a new computer. I'd like to be able to return to my university studies. I need some dentures for my teeth for a couple of side teeth that fell out" #PovertyInquiry

@janet_rice asks Andrew how he copes w/ putting his medication on AfterPay

"I'm basically paying off a 1/3 of it before I put the next one on."

"I get the Pharmaceutical Allowance but it's only like $6 -- it doesn't even cover a single medication" #PovertyInquiry

If you’ve made it through this thread, & still don’t believe we need to immediately #RaiseTheRate to #88aDay, I don’t know what more it will take. This is some of the bravest, rawest testimony I’ve ever seen in our parliament

We finished the session by clearly saying that people, our members, want to work. Raised income support would help them work.

As Lee-Anne says here: "people don't like being idle. If anything, the lockdown showed that" #PovertyInquiry