PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has defended moves to reduce welfare payments for single parents, despite warnings that scores of families will be further priced out of Wyndham’s rental market.
Under changes announced in last month’s federal budget, all single, unemployed parents will be forced off their current payments of $648 a fortnight and onto the lower-paying unemployment benefit, Newstart, at $508 a fortnight once their youngest child turns eight.
Lalor MP Ms Gillard said the changes were geared towards encouraging struggling single parents to get back into he workforce.
She said the old rules, which provided parenting payments until the child turned 16, meant many parents ended up “trapped on social security”. “If they commence a bit of part-time work when their child is school-aged … it will be better for them because they’ll have a job for the rest of their lives, and better for the child to have someone in the household modelling what it’s like to go to work every day.”
Ms Gillard said Wyndham was home to areas of social disadvantage and intergenerational unemployment. Charizma Fletcher and her three children, aged 1-4, are bunking at her former mother-in-law’s house in Hoppers Crossing.
The 23-year-old single mum – who said she had been on the public housing waiting list for more than five years and had been rejected from more than 200 rental properties in Wyndham – said she was worried about how she would cope once she was put on the Newstart allowance, but was confident she could manage. “Once my daughter’s in school I’ll need to look for a job, but looking for work and looking for a house at the same time will be really hard. I’ve just got to find out what I can do, and what I want to do, depending on the hours of work,” she said.
UnitingCare Werribee Support and Housing chief executive Carol Muir said securing an appropriate part-time job could prove difficult for single parents. “If parents can get training that will lead to employment, that’s a very good thing, but to be able to find jobs that fit around the hours you need, including drop-off and pick-up times at school … that’s the dilemma.”
With no public housing and limited transitional housing in Wyndham, Ms Muir feared what reduced welfare payments would mean for families trying to secure a rental house, with many forced to couch-surf, sleep in cars or take shelter in emergency accommodation.
