Perth, 28 July 2003
Mary Jenkins and Geoff Pain
Secretary, Mary Jenkins, presentation:
The UPU WA submission 17 (2,3,5,12,15,20) concerns Tax issues, the rest are
Social issues. Since the 2003 budget the level of poverty and hardship have increased especially for underemployed people. The UPU maintains that unemployment has escalated. Government unemployment statistics fail to count in those who are underemployed. If a person works one hour a week they are not counted as unemployed yet these people live in poverty and have vanished from the Government figures. This is because the last Census did not analyse time and gender work habits. This makes a mockery of how Government policy makers plan food, shelter and clothing needs of the community who are not in full time work.
The poorest people are taxed the most
There is no way out of the poverty trap for those supporting a family on less than $40,000 a year. Life is full of stress, hardship and fear for those attempting to provide food shelter and clothing for a family on less than $40,000. Anyone working part time or casual has even greater stress. This often leads to family breakdowns, violence and abuse even suicide; all of these are on the rise. This adds to the budgets of Federal, State and Local Government services at the grass roots. Most services today are stretched to the limit. Even local Church ministers are stressed as demand increases daily for their help.
Bracket creeping tax system:
This prevents many working families and their children from becoming productive participants in their community Family finances are stretched to the limit. Eg. Less than half the number of boys enrolled for soccer this season in Cockburn because of the increase in fees. Parents hold back on taking their children to the doctors and parents just don't bother to go themselves unless it's an emergency. The dentist is another luxury that parents have cut back on.
For those attempting to survive on less than a living wage or not in a permanent job, the situation is untenable. It is impossible to acquire a bank loan for a car or enter into a mortgage in the outer suburbs (where housing is cheaper, a car is essential for work and public transport costs more from outer regions). These people are more heavily penalised by the tax system. More time on their journey to work or job interviews means less time with their families and increases childcare costs. Time poverty is real for many and adds further stress to family life.
The bracket creep for underemployed people is draconian claiming 70c in the dollar if earnings top $142 a fortnight-$71 a week.
Scenario 1
Today a single mother with two children faces increases since the budget in rent, power, water, fuel, food, transport, school and childcare fees, health, clothes and shoe costs. These are the bare essentials for every family. So she attempts to improve her situation by taking casual or part time work. The present system only allows her $71 a week - one full day or two half days a week. This is soon eaten up by the increase in living costs and so she is back to square one. Living in poverty.
Instead of a Government policy that forces her go begging to charitable organizations the alternative would be simple. Lift the tax threshold on what she can earn. This would allow her to be more productive and increase her confidence when she becomes a valued productive member of the community.
If this woman has a degree and two children and she finds a fulltime job she has to pay not only childcare costs but also HECS fees and superannuation. This leaves a huge hole in her finances, she becomes part of the working poor doomed to rent a home from those who negative gear their wealth.
There is no recognition for her contribution to the nation by producing a child. Meanwhile those who remain childless are living on the taxation fatted calf where they receive help to buy a home and negative gear another homes. If they have children they receive a superior private education that is subsidised by taxpayers. The opportunity for children, with underemployed parents, is grim.
Scenario 2.
In 1987 my neighbour became a single parent after ten years of marriage. Forced to leave her home when her husband demanded his share of the family home at current prices, she moved to an outer suburb. With two girls under ten she was devastated. She contemplated suicide but with strong family and friends' support she enrolled in TAFE for one year. The following year she went to university. She did this under the Jet Scheme that helped single women out of the poverty trap. The Government investment in this woman has been repaid. She is now a lawyer with her own business. She has been a productive local government councillor for the past eight years and her daughter is in university.
The community has been enhanced by this woman's education. It was paid by a Government, which had the foresight to value, instead of victimise a single mother. This does not happen today, instead today, single women are victimised forced to remain in the poverty trap created by two draconian budgets. Well-heeled public policy makers victimise single parents through the tax system instead of valuing their productive contribution (including their children) to the future of this nation.
Population Poverty and the consequences for our nation:
Why are so many people opting out of parenthood today? Children do not have the vote and so the value of a child to the future of this nation has been diminished. Our whole future depends on how we treat our children, not just the one's from families that can afford private education. Instead the Government penalises a large percentage of the population by forcing them into poverty. The health and education of all children is the responsibility of the Government. There is no profit in this. It is a right of every citizen to expect a good health and education system. Otherwise we can expect more suicides, more vandalism, and increases in home invasion, crime and community fear. The gap between rich and poor increases daily. Charity has never been the solution to poverty.
There is less of everything for everyone today except stress, taxes and fear. We have a right to question and challenge the tax system itself when it is screwed up, because it is screwing up the future of too many children.
The Government and some others' perception of unemployed people:
Unemployed people or people on disability pensions are not hopeless cases who exploit the system as some politicians and other comfortable people imply. The term “dole bludger” vilifies everyone on benefits and should be outlawed.
The new Jobstart system assumes everyone has a permanent address, telephone and is computer literate. This is often not the case many can't even read and write. People are breached, victimised, for being incapable of understanding, or able to conform to a system that changes almost weekly.
Many of the UPU WA members, some with disabilities, are mature highly skilled professional people who want to contribute but are rejected by the system. The last two budgets offered them no hope, no vision or investment in job creation.
Many underemployed professional people find it abhorrent to approach a charitable organization for the bare essentials. The result is depression, family violence and even suicide that has placed further cost on the health system, a health service that is also in poverty.
Suggestions that have been canvassed to create jobs:
No interest by policy makers, have been attributed to the value of these schemes. The last two budgets offered nothing but-:
- Poverty in Education:
The primary school system would be greatly enhanced if a mature person became a teachers' aid in every classroom. This would stem the poverty of teachers in the education system when many full time teachers retire in the near future. To ignore this valuable skilled human resource now will lead to a crisis in the future education system.
- Poverty in Health
Another job creation solution is to allow a person in full time work to take a year off and receive unemployment benefits. An unemployed person could be placed in their job for a year. This would be a solution to maternity leave and also offer workers a chance to upgrade qualifications, take study leave or work for an organization like Oxfam abroad for a year. This would not only increase the skills of the unemployed person but also stem the onslaught of depression that is endemic in many workplaces and the community at large today.
- Poverty in New Australian inventions, science and CSIRO:
The Government can no longer afford to allow the present brain drain from Australia. They need to recognise and increase CSIRO funding, invest and encouraging new inventions. For students who were encouraged to do science degrees their future job prospects have diminished. The fear of poverty is real for many today in Australia. The policy shift to invest in defence instead of its citizens has increased terror and hardship as the gap between the rich and poor widens.
Poverty is real today in Australia --
Your choices run out when your money does
Mary Jenkins, UPUWA Inc
Geoff Pain presentation:
I'd like to follow Mary's comments by addressing:
- The brain drain
- Rising household debt
- Financial predators and the need to regulate interest rates
- Measures of poverty
- Victimization of the unemployed by Centrelink breaching
- The need for fortnightly unemployment figures to be made public
Today 2,700 Australians will lose their full-time jobs. Following the mid-year sales, the retail sector will let many shop assistants go.
Manufacturing continues to be hit hard, a recent example being the closure of a pie factory with loss of 260 jobs. A similar number [was] fired at a factory making harvesting equipment for sugar cane.
The share market reacts like Pavlov's dogs when jobs are slashed, the share price goes up.
The fact that the redundant worker was a consumer is still not considered relevant.
Australia has 2 unemployed for every person working in manufacturing.
Today more than 225 Australians will leave the country having obtained temporary work visas in other countries. That's over 82,000 [figure for 1999] Australians leaving the country each year. In 1995 it was 58,000 [Patricia Karvelas,
The Australian 2002].
Over 850,000 Australians are working overseas.
Today 10 Australians will commit suicide and hundreds of others will attempt it.
One of my former casual employees came to me one day and said he had come to an important decision point - he would either commit suicide or depart permanently overseas to do useful work. I'm glad he left the country, but sad he left his family behind.
Looking at the
Sunday Times newspaper in Perth yesterday we can see just 37 jobs advertised [
Sunday Times 27/7/03 pages 125, 127, 128]. Unemployment in this state is over 80,000.
In the same newspaper over 140 Western Australians offer themselves as prostitutes. Seven of these prostitute advertisements specify that they are students. Some are foreign students from poor backgrounds in Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Africa, paying expensive university fees, with no money coming from home.
Many prostitutes can't afford the costs and risks of advertising.
The going rate for oral sex in Western Australia is $20. Women are hitchhiking, targeting commercial vehicles in the middle of the day.
It is significant the Samaritans advertise in the prostitution columns. Their ad reads: "Despairing and suicidal please ring Samaritans we will listen and support". Based in Albany, they offer an 1800 number for those who can't afford an STD call.
Also in the prostitution columns you will find money lenders and tax agents offering their services.
In today's
Australian newspaper, Sid Marris reports that household debt has increased from 50% of household income in 1990 to 122% in 2002.
He quotes a Reserve Bank of Australia discussion paper which shows that 22% of Australian households are described as "cash constrained" - those that find difficulty meeting all their commitments.
That's not surprising since over one third of all Australians aged 15-64 are dependent on some sort of welfare payment.
According to Ms Christina Pollard, Nutrition Program Manager with the WA Health Department, more than 70,000 West Australians went without food last year because they could not afford it. Burswood Resort donates 25 litres of soup per week to Foodbank. [Kristina Watts article
The West Australian]. Foodbank was forced to increase its charge to charity agencies for out-of-date food from 50 cents to 55 cents per kilogram because it has to bring in food from interstate to meet demand. [private communication to Geoff Pain]. New soup kitchens open.
One consequence of the growing poverty in Australia today is the prevalence of loan sharks.
Personal bankruptcy increased by 28% after the introduction of the GST [Goods and Services Tax].
I'll quote just one example of a company which has spent tens of thousands of dollars advertising loans. The company is Quantum Credit.
Their advertisement caught my eye - offering loans of $1000 - $2000.
[
The Sunday Times 4/Aug/2002 page 20].
What made my blood boil was the fact that they charge 48% interest - that's right - FORTY-EIGHT PERCENT per annum! Clearly the ad was targeted at people who could not get a credit card at a mere 19%.
The company employed an answering service, refused to give a street address or details of any charges in addition to interest over the phone.
I was so outraged by this exploitation of the desperate that I referred the advertisement to the State Government via the then Department of Consumer and Employment Protection.
The matter was investigated by the Finance Brokers Supervisory Board.
Because the company held a credit provider's licence, it was not required to hold a finance broker's licence and so the matter was out of the Supervisory Board's hands.
I would like to see this Senate Committee call for legislation to cap interest rates at no more than 15% per annum.
There has been recent media interest in the massive failures of the Job Network and the Government's JobSearch website [e.g.
The Australian 15/Jul/03 and Patricia Karvelas, 25/Jul/03 page 2].
This Senate Committee might examine the position of some commercial websites offering to match job seekers with employers.
Rupert Murdoch's CareerOne [web]site linking the total advertising databases of 100 of Australia's newspapers carries only 40,000 vacancies. In other words there are 50 or more job seekers per vacancy.
The rival Monster site is losing about $6 million per year [Sainsbury and Elliott,
The Australian 25/Jul/03].
Seventy-nine percent of dole breach reports, a staggering 161,000 recommended breaches, were overturned by February this year according to Freedom of Information study by researcher Susan Lackner [Christine Jackman,
The Australian 10/Jul/03 page 4].
Senator Mark Bishop and MHR Wayne Swan are to be commended for extracting actual unemployment numbers from the government. [Patricia Karvelas,
The Australian 19-20/Jul/03 page 9].
The Australian public have a right to know the actual number of people underemployed. These figures are automatically generated by Centrelink each fortnight when decisions are made how many cheques are to be printed, how many people are to be breached, and how many will have benefits reduced because they managed to find a few hours work and honestly reported it. How many Aborigines are unemployed?
We need a mechanism to count the number of underemployed who are not drawing any welfare benefit. Small business owners are some of our most stressed and vulnerable workers. They survive by selling or borrowing against personal assets. Those who are registered for GST and report no wages paid for the quarter would give some idea of the numbers.
The number of Australians described as long-term jobless has doubled under the Howard Government. It is a national source of shame.
Centrelink are unable to tell me how many of the registered underemployed have tertiary qualifications. In the absence of such basic data, how can education and training programs be designed?
Our degree graduates are told not to expect a full-time job for more than a couple of years at a time.
University professors have said that the day the Ph.D. thesis is submitted will increasingly mark the end of our best scholars' research careers.
Further information and copies of references from: Dr Geoff Pain,
PO Box 1578, Canning Vale, WA 6970; Tel/fax/answer 08 9390 0128 Email
geoff.pain@excite.com
