Welfare Groups Increase Pressure On Howard
The Age
Sunday July 7, 1996
Canberra.
The welfare lobby will today highlight the dangers of next month's Budget for the disadvantaged, claiming that the Government's tough deficit reduction strategy will inevitably hit the needy.
The Australian Council of Social Service and eight community and consumer organisations at a joint news conference in Melbourne will increase public pressure on the Government not to renege on its welfare promises.
The deputy president of ACOSS, Mr Michael Raper, says in a statement to be issued today that while the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, and other ministers have recently repeated their stated commitment to maintaining the social welfare safety net ``their words are wearing very thin as the gap between the pledge and the likely reality is widening".
Mr Raper says that on the evidence to date the Budget could mean reduced access to labor market programs for the long- term unemployed, reduced legal aid for those who can not afford a lawyer, increased debt for students, no Austudy for school students, poverty for new migrants who can not get social security, and reduced services for rural and regional Australians.
He says proposals that seem under consideration include reducing the Medicare rebate, cuts that would hit meals-on- wheels and other services to the frail aged, upfront and exit fees for nursing homes, cuts in childcare assistance and income testing of the domiciliary nursing care benefit.
``Such measures would hurt the low-income (people), the aged, the sick, the newly-arrived, the young, and indigenous people - all among the most vulnerable in Australia.
``This seems inevitable if the Government sticks to its unrealistic and unnecessary deficit reduction strategy."
Mr Raper says ACOSS believes Mr Howard genuinely wants to keep his pledge about the safety net.
``But how can he - when faced with two seemingly opposing priorities? Something has to go.
``Either the extremes of the Budget deficit reduction strategy, or the pledge that Mr Howard has repeatedly made."
© 1996 The Age