Salvation Army says it is ‘simply inhumane’ to give corporations a tax cut while failing to lift Newstart

There is a small public car park on the northern banks of the Hawkesbury, near where the river swallows Mooney Mooney creek.

To most, the car park is an unremarkable blip on the busy thoroughfare out of Sydney.

To Jane, who does not wish to have her last name published, it was home during her darkest hours.

Driven into homelessness by family violence, the single mother spent the past year living in her father’s old caravan.

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Her social security payment, though, could not stretch to meet a fortnight’s campground fees and the basic costs of living. When the money inevitably ran dry, Jane would steer herself into the car park, arriving late and leaving early to avoid detection.

“I used to call it ‘Riverview’,” Jane said. “It’s a constant stress … how do you have the sanity to walk into a job interview and be positive when you’re constantly thinking, ‘Tonight, where am I staying?’”

Jane is one of many for whom Newstart and similar-level payments are inadequate.



New research, released on Wednesday by the Salvation Army, shows that the average Newstart recipient is left with just $17 a day after accommodation expenses.

The finding was one of the starkest to emerge from the Salvos’ 2018 economic and social impact survey, which examined the financial situation of 1,267 people accessing the charity’s services.

It has prompted the Salvation Army to call for Newstart to be lifted, which the Coalition failed to do in this month’s budget.

“It is simply inhumane that corporations and wealthy households are handed a tax cut, while the most disadvantaged and marginalised people in this country continue to be ignored,” Salvation Army major Paul Moulds said.

“It is widely acknowledged it will take a minimum increase of $75 a week just to ensure people can live on the poverty line – let alone above it.”

The survey also found 81% of those who were renting or paying a mortgage live in extreme housing stress, using more than half their income towards housing.

About half said finding a job or being accepted into education was their greatest challenge day-to-day.

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Two in five households with children were unable to afford either three meals a day, fresh fruit/vegetables every day, or a single meal with meat, chicken or a vegetable equivalent.



Roughly one-quarter of the respondents had moved house within the past year due to family violence.

When Jane left her husband, she found herself confronted by a system that appeared to be stacked against her. She had to represent herself in court proceedings.



Her switch from Newstart to Austudy has precluded her from early access to superannuation, despite her hardship, which should entitle her.

“It left me with a huge gap and the only place I could live was in a caravan park,” she said.

Despite extensive higher education and experience as a business management consultant, she has found it hard to get back into the job market. Age is a barrier, as is her time away from the industry, which has changed in the years since she was last in work.

Jane has now obtained more secure housing, with the help of the Salvation Army and the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services.

She is studying law in a bid to update her skills and find a way back into employment. Her experience has proved to her one thing about Newstart-level payments.

“No one can survive on that money.”