Impact on Aboriginal welfare recipients

Gerry Georgatos
Centrelink recipients who do not show up to training, work experience or Work for the Dole are having their welfare payments suspended immediately despite their family's needs under Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 'No Show, No Pay' initiative.

The initiative was introduced last July and in Western Australia alone 23,201 recipients have their payments suspended between July to December last year. Rights advocates have slammed the mercilessness of these suspensions and said that they impact disproportionately on Aboriginal families, and that individual circumstances and predicaments are not being taken into account.

A Centrelink spokesman said that if the recipient did not provide a valid reason for missing a commitment or meeting with a Centrelink case worker or Centrelink contracted job provider the payments were cancelled.

Minister for employment participation Kate Ellis said certain Centrelink recipients are obliged to look for work. "Businesses are crying out for workers and yet there remain too many Australians without a job."

Human Rights Alliance Indigenous spokesperson, Natalie Flower said that Aboriginal peoples often had more obstacles to overcome in getting to appointments, were without cars and helped their extended families out with money, especially the aged and those with children, and were often without transport money or credit for their mobile phone.

"As it stands jobseeker attendance rates are 57%, so it is an endemic problem brought on by poverty, often induced, that stops people from getting to appointments and commitments and this is often compounded by despair, sadness, depression and it is not right for the government to slam one sentence rules across the board, inducing more poverty, familial breakdowns, individual meltdowns and disempowerment," said Ms Flower.

"The payments are abysmally low anyway, at best $30 a day, so taking this away from families creates hardship, and the poorest Aboriginal families endure more hardship than others."

WA Council of Social Services chief executive officer Irina Cattalini also said this 'punitive measure' had a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged Aboriginal families. "People can miss appointments for all sorts of reason, such as being unable to afford to travel that day, not having credit for a phone call."

Shelter for the Needy coordinator, Lea Keenan said, "Mandatory policies do not work, and a one rule for all payment suspension does lead many to homelessness, trauma, domestic violence, and to mental illness, and we see on our Perth streets as we go out to our homeless more and more people, especially Indigenous having turned to homelessness because of payment suspensions or too much bureaucracy and authority from for Centrelink."

"I can only be critical of Julia Gillard's 'No Show, No Pay' rule, and just see someone who does not appear to understand as individuals our poorest, our most disadvantaged, and who does not again understand the additional problems and dynamics of our poorest and most disadvantaged Indigenous people," said Ms Keenan.

Payments resume, and often with backpay, once the jobseeker agrees to attend a new appointment, however if they missed the new appointment, known as 'reconnection', without a 'valid reason' they would not be entitled to backpay.

Centrelink has between 6.6 million to 7.8 million recipients of a Centrelink adminstered benefit in any one year.