THOUSANDS of single parents in Lalor are hopeful of a better future following hints that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s new cabinet could reverse cuts to parenting payments.
Labor has flagged it will weigh up a decision on Julia Gillard’s welfare agenda, under which single parents whose youngest child had turned eight were shifted off parenting payments onto the lower-paying dole.
Moves to shift single parents onto Newstart began under the Howard government in 2006 and were continued by the Gillard government when it applied the changes to another 84,000 families on January 1. Single-parent families were stripped of between $60 and $110 a week.
The issue caused controversy in Ms Gillard’s seat of Lalor, which had the highest number of parents on single parenting payments in Australia.
Wyndham Vale mother-of-two Kerry Arch said she was pleased at the prospect of a policy shift, but any decision could only become a re-election promise.
“We want the reversal now, and we want to be able to discuss our important issues with the government,” she said. “If this goes to a promise after the election, we’re still worried about what happens if Tony Abbott gets in.”
Ms Arch, of lobby group United Sole Parents of Australia, said members were excited about last week’s change of prime minister.
Greens Lalor candidate Beck Sheffield-Brotherton cast doubt over the extent the government’s welfare policy will shift under Mr Rudd, given that a Greens bill to deliver a $50-a-week increase to Newstart was defeated in the Senate on Friday.
It was voted down by both the ALP and coalition.
