2017-05-31
The renewed push to remove the energy supplement for income support recipients is another assault on people who will be struggling to get by on extremely low income support payments, Australian Greens Senator Rachel Siewert said today.
“The Government is unrelenting in its attempts to erode and weaken the social safety net as a way to balance the books. People accessing the social safety net can’t afford to lose any more money.
“Removing the energy supplement is a cut to an income support payment that desperately needs lifting. For years it has been established that the Newstart payment is dismally low and hasn’t increased in real terms for a really long time.
“As I have said before, the argument that the energy supplement is no longer necessary with the carbon price gone is rubbish. We have been told that because of how the clean energy supplement was introduced, removing it will leave people worse off than if it had never been introduced.
“It is time the Government stopped trying to cut our social safety net and focused on improving our social safety net”.