• Labor toughens welfare rules, By Patricia Karvelas, August 12, 2010, The Australian: “Julia Gillard has promised much tougher welfare conditions for those on the dole. She has warned the unemployed that they will lose their benefits if they miss an interview or scheduled training opportunities. Welfare groups slammed the move as draconian, while the Coalition accused the Prime Minister of copying its as-yet-unannounced policy. Ms Gillard yesterday revealed she would offer long-term unemployed people up to $6000 to relocate to take up a job, under a welfare-to-work initiative first flagged by the opposition. Employers will be offered $2500 to take on long-term unemployed who have relocated, as the government sets out to encourage people to shift to areas with worker shortages. The program will begin with a trial relocation assistance package, starting in January with 2000 long-term unemployed people…”
• Welfare payments linked to child health checks, By Patricia Karvelas, August 10, 2010, The Australian: “Julia Gillard has announced new rules requiring parents of four-year-olds to take the children for health checks before getting benefits. At stake for the parents is the $726.35 family tax benefit. The new rules for the payment of Family Tax Benefit Part A are part of a radical new plan to link welfare with behavioural change. The Prime Minister announced in Melbourne today a major extension of the government’s welfare reform plan that began with the dole and payments to single mothers. Working parents who receive family payments will be obliged to fulfil responsibilities imposed by the authorities before they receive taxpayer money. Payment of the family tax benefit end-of-year supplement for families on income support for four-year-olds will be conditional on certification that a Healthy Kids Check has been undertaken. The Healthy Kids Checks for four-year-olds were introduced by the government in 2008 to ensure children were healthy before they started school…”

Homeless People’s Problems Grow, By Natasha Bita, July 22, 2010, The Austrilian:  “Two in every three homeless people are being turned away from crisis accommodation each night, a damning government report reveals. Three years after the Rudd government pledged to halve homelessness by 2020, crisis services are facing unprecedented levels of demand. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare yesterday reported that 62 per cent of homeless people — including 80 per cent of couples with children — were unable to find a bed on any given day during 2008-09. The homeless crisis is hitting youth the hardest, with 56 per cent of people with a “valid unmet request” for a bed for the night being turned away. A further 37 per cent of the homeless were aged 20 to 44. Ninety per cent of the homeless people were Australian-born, and more than a quarter of them were indigenous. The institute found that 82,300 Australians were seeking emergency accommodation each night, including 13,300 women escaping domestic violence and 24,600 children…”

• Freeze over, minimum wage up by $26 a week, By Ben Schneiders and Misha Schubert, June 4, 2010, The Age: “More than 1.4 million low-paid workers will receive their biggest pay rise in many years after the first decision by the Rudd government’s new workplace tribunal in a move attacked by employers as ‘excessive’ and ‘irresponsible’. Employers warned of a threat to jobs and said it would add $2.5 billion to the small business wages bill after the decision to lift award-reliant workers’ wages from July 1 by $26 a week to $569.90 a week or $15 an hour. The decision - $1 a week less than the ACTU’s claim - comes after minimum wages were controversially frozen last year in the final ruling of the Fair Pay Commission, the body set up by the Howard government…”
• Opinion split over minimum wage rise, June 4, 2010, ABC News: “Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard has dismissed concerns that Thursday’s decision to increase the minimum wage will put pressure on inflation and employment growth. Fair Work Australia has granted Australia’s lowest paid workers a wage increase of $26 a week, bringing the minimum weekly wage to almost $570. But business groups are furious, saying the increase is risky, irresponsible, unjustified and will cost jobs. Ms Gillard says the pay rise will give low-paid workers a fairer share of the benefits of Australia’s economic recovery…”

• Rudd government backs pay rise for 1.4m low-paid workers, By Ewin Hannan, May 18, 2010, The Australian: “Canberra is backing an above-inflation wage rise this year for the nation’s 1.4 million low-paid workers, prompting employers to warn they will be forced to shed jobs and cut hours if the position is backed by the wages umpire. As unions renewed their push for a $27-a-week increase in the minimum wage, the government said increases in minimum wages could allow low-paid workers to share in the benefits of economic growth, while ensuring jobs growth continued. Appearing before Fair Work Australia’s minimum wage panel, government advocate John Kovacic said the pay of low-income workers had ‘gone backwards’ as a result of last year’s minimum wage freeze…”
• Most sides support a rise in minimum wage after freeze, By Kirsty Needham, May 18, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald: “Eric Abetz, the opposition’s workplace spokesman, has joined the federal government and unions in supporting a rise in the minimum wage to make up for last year’s freeze. Unions and business groups are appearing this week before the Fair Work Australia tribunal, which will decide the first minimum wage case since taking over from the Howard-era Fair Pay Commission. Mr Abetz said yesterday there was a strong case for a catch-up rise, the line also being pushed by the Australian Council of Trade Unions. ‘Australian workers took to the task of assisting us through the global financial crisis. Now that we’re coming through I think it makes sense to have a catch-up,’ he said…”

Welfare change squeezes sole parents, By Adele Horn, May 5, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald: “Thousands of sole parents are worse off under rules that changed their child support entitlements and forced them to get a job or go on the dole, new research reveals. A typical sole parent with one child aged between six and 12 could be as much as $6700 a year worse off as a result of reforms initiated by the Howard government and introduced from 2006 to 2008. The study, by academics at Murdoch University in Perth, shows only when typical sole parents get a full-time job paying at least $45,000 can they be better off with the new arrangements. But this is unlikely for most as their youngest child is only seven or eight when they have to move off the Parenting Payment and into the workforce…”

Welfare crackdown misses targets, By Adele Horn, March 11, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald: “The welfare-to-work reform implemented under the Howard government failed to achieve its objectives, leaving three of the four target groups - disability pensioners, the very long-term unemployed and mature-age unemployed - little or no better off, an official report shows. Sole parents fared better in the job market after the reforms began in July 2006. The numbers on the single parenting payment fell significantly from 433,730 before the reform to 338,756 in December 2009. But it is unclear if sole parents are financially better off. The report, by the research and evaluation group of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, says the results were mixed. Despite being implemented at a time of strong labour market demand: ‘Welfare to work was only partly successful in achieving its objectives…’”

• New law to quarantine all welfare payments, By Matthew Franklin, November 25, 2009, The Australian: “Welfare recipients across Australia face compulsory income-management under a Rudd government move to ensure their payments are not being wasted on alcohol, drugs or gambling. Under legislation to be introduced into the House of Representatives today, the government will have the power to require that 50 per cent of a welfare recipient’s payments be quarantined for spending on food and the essentials of life. The significant welfare reform, in part an extension of elements of the government’s controversial intervention into indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, is designed to protect children from neglect and reduce family violence…”
• Welfare control goes country-wide, By Yuko Narushima, November 25, 2009, Sydney Morning Herald: “Compulsory income management will be expanded to welfare recipients across the country to make the Government’s control of Aboriginal welfare comply with racial discrimination laws. From July 1, the measure that forces people in remote indigenous communities to allocate half their welfare payments to food, rent and clothing, will apply to all severely disadvantaged people…”
• Welfare measure attacked, By Yuko Narushima, November 26, 2009, Sydney Morning Herald: “Expanding income management across the country will demonise more people on flawed evidence that it benefits disadvantaged communities, social service, charity and church groups say. The controversial measure, introduced in 2007 as part of the Federal Government’s intervention into the Northern Territory, was yesterday extended to low socio-economic groups across the country…”

• Homelessness surges as rents soars, By Stephen Lunn, July 9, 2009, The Australian: “More families are being squeezed into homelessness by the high costs of private rental, but better support services have led to fewer teenagers on the streets.  A new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare into Australia’s homeless finds numbers were on the march in Australia even before the global financial crisis hit home…”
• More sleeping rough in capitals, July 9, 2009, News.com.au: “The number of people sleeping rough on the streets of capital cities was on the rise before the financial crisis hit, a new report shows.  The number of homeless older Australians has also been increasing, new analysis by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) shows…”
• Govt pours money into help for homeless, By Susanna Dunkerley, July 7, 2009, Brisbane Times: “The Rudd government has poured millions of dollars into its plan to combat homelessness, amid criticism from the sector it had put it on the backburner.  The ambitious $800 million state and federal plan to halve homeless rates by 2020 was due to get off the ground last week…”