MEDIA RELEASE Wednesday, 10 July 2013 Family First Tasmania Single Parents Outraged “Not happy Julie!” While Australia’s new “Minister for Status of Women” Julie Collins enjoys her new pay rise, now earning well over $200,000 per annum, Tasmania’s single mums are being forced into poverty. Family First Senate candidate Peter Madden and Family First Lyon’s Candidate single mother and community worker, Gaye James, have spoken out strongly against Labor’s failure of sole parents and tomorrow will join the nationwide sole parent protest movement. On Thursday 11 July, there will be simultaneous sole parent rallies all around Australia as single mums and dads attempt to send a strong message to the federal government about moving them on to Newstart. In Tasmania they’re taking the protest right to Tasmania’s Julie Collins’ door. Ms James said of the rally: “Our current economic hard times don’t effect Julie Collins and fat cat MPs in her situation, but the struggling single parents I work with on a daily basis have been devastated and it’s Labor’s absurd sole parent/Newstart decision that is crippling them. This move, supposedly trying to get sole parents to take on full time employment, has forced Australia’s most vulnerable families into further poverty. Even before this Newstart travesty, out of the 879,000 sole parent households in Australia (2,363,000 people), 24% lived below the poverty line and now Labor has made it even worse! It may be a “good policy” for single people who it was originally intended for, but to place parents with dependents onto a payment barely adequate for an individual, is nothing short of blatant neglect.” Sole parents have so many more factors to juggle for a “healthy” work/family life balance than any other category in society. Adequate, affordable and flexible child care for starters, greatly limit the jobs they can apply for and then there’s the $400-$500 in child care many have to pay over each school holiday period leaving no “spare” money for groceries, petrol or utilities. The whole thing is absurd. It is absolutely vital that “Parenting Payment Single” be reinstated for the sake of these precious families so parents can parent, work, study and/or fulfil career responsibilities. Does this government want sole parent families in poverty? Poverty clearly creates a dysfunctional society and it would seem that this Labor government is happy to allow Aussie children to experience even worse poverty and demonstrates this on a daily basis by ignoring the pleas of mothers and fathers who are desperate just to give their kids a “good enough” quality of life. It’s time to stand and continue to hold Labor to account until this crucial issue is dealt with and common sense and common decency is reinstated for single parent families.”
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 06:41:24 +0000
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