As we said last night (and no doubt will continue to say because it’s very depressing) there is nothing in this budget which lifts people on welfare payments out of poverty. Currently, we are forcing people to live about 38% below the poverty line. We are compounding chronic health conditions, malnutrition, lack of community, isolation, mental health issues and everything else that goes with being unemployed (And having a proportion of the population unemployed is something we rely on to keep inflation down by the way) by ‘supporting’ them with a payment that can’t pay for a single rental property in Australia and increasingly makes rooms in cities unattainable.

Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and Disability Support Pension recipient Kristin O’Connell said of the budget:

This is an irresponsible budget that once again has betrayed millions of welfare recipients and left us in deep poverty – poverty that causes sickness, homelessness and suicides. This budget puts the nail in the coffin of Anthony Albanese’s cruel, false promise to leave no one behind.

So-called energy bill relief does nothing to help when energy companies keep ratcheting up prices. The government needs to stop pretending to help poor people with more handouts for big business, landlords and corporate charities.

For people on Centrelink payments life is harder now than it was three years ago, and this budget does nothing to change that.