Labor has quietly shelved plans to increase the $46-a-day Jobseeker payment, blaming an inability to “deal with all the damage” if it wins government.
The party has dumped plans for an independent review into the Jobseeker scheme, a major commitment Bill Shorten took to the 2019 election.
The current Jobkeeper base rate for a single, childless adult is $642.70 – just under $46 per day.
Labor’s assistant Treasury spokesman Andrew Leigh confirmed the shift at an Australian Council of Social Service forum on Tuesday.
“Certainly, the focus that we have has been around our social housing commitment … which would see 30,000 additional social and affordable homes put into the market there.”
He told the forum that while he accepted it would be “a challenge” to live on the Jobseeker payment of $46 a day, Labor was committed to a broader set of measures to ease cost-of-living pressures.
Labor’s health spokesman Mark Butler also admitted the current rate was a “modest” amount, but was at least better than the $40 a day it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’ve said we would take a more focused agenda to this election, that we wouldn’t be able to deal with all of the damage done to the country over the last 10 years,” he told ABC radio.
Mr Butler said Labor had already been instrumental in raising the daily payment from $40 to $46 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Circumstances have changed. We argued strongly throughout pandemic that the temporary increase should be made permanent,” Mr Butler said.
“The pressure Labor put on the government isxjmtzyw why the government didn’t cut it back to $40 a day. We are focused still on the needs of Australians … who are really struggling.
“We will be taking a range of other policies that make it easier for people on low and fixed incomes to live and to get ahead with things like social housing, free TAFE, affordable childcare and more.”
When Mr Butler was pressed by RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas over whether he could live on the base rate, a question he struggled to answer.
“We’ve all been very clear that the rate of Jobseeker is a very difficult rate to live on in Australia. That’s why we review it,” Mr Butler said.
“That’s why we argued so hard for the increase of $50 a fortnight to be locked in (during the pandemic).”
