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“The slashed $615 per fortnight JobSeeker rate announced today [will] … trap 1.4 million people and their kids almost 50% below the poverty line.
“This is not a raise; it is a cut,” O’Connell continued, adding that it will “entrench poverty and lock people out of work for years or decades, as we have seen in every past recession”. O Connell warned of the impact of cuts on peoples’ mental health.
“We don’t believe the government should force anyone to live in poverty and we know the vast majority agrees with us.
“There are not enough jobs. Instead of handing billions of dollars to private organisations who bully, threaten and harass us, the government should be caring for people who are locked out of work,” O’Connell said, referring to the job providers who will be given more power to harass unemployed people.
Compounding the uncertainty for those missing out on the “recovery” is the fact that the federal government will withdraw JobKeeper (a wage subsidy to some businesses, now reduced to $500 per week per employee) and most of the Coronavirus supplement to JobSeeker (now only $150 per fortnight), at the end of March.
JobKeeper withdrawal
There are 1.5 million workers relying on JobKeeper, according to Sabra Lane, who spoke to federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on February 15 for the ABC Radio AM program. “What these numbers show is a broad-based recovery in the Australian labour market, with over 2 million having graduated from JobKeeper,” Frydenberg said.
The Mark McGowan Labor government is basing its decision on its own Westport Taskforce, which examined the future of the port and associated land and transport questions.
The Westport process and the government decision assume that the volume of container traffic and per capita consumption of imported goods will increase nearly three-fold in just 50 years.
This is reckless stupidity.
If we let capitalism continue on its drive for endless growth we can be certain that all the thresholds for runaway climate change will have been crossed, triggering the collapse of the Earth’s life systems and human civilisation along with it.
We need a clear-eyed understanding of the implications of current Chinese policies concerning Australia.
The policy adopted by the Socialist Alliance (SA) at its 15th national conference fails to provide this. While it appropriately identifies Australian and other capitalist “allies’” response to China as hypocritical and phoney, it fails to accurately identify China as a growing danger to the world.
The policy is dangerously naïve in portraying China as a victim of Western imperialism.
No, it is not a victim: it is a “child” of Western neoliberal capitalism. It is a Frankenstein monster created by European neoliberal capitalism which, over the last 30 years, has been exploiting its workforce using state-of-the-art technology to reap massive profits for foreign multinationals. Go to Bunnings and buy yourself a Chinese gizmo!