The maximum rate of Newstart Allowance for single parents is $537.80 a fortnight, while the maximum Parenting Payment for single parents is $683.50 a fortnight. Bianca Maciel Pizzorno, with her sons Carlos (left) and Alessandro, feels lucky despite her battle to make ends meet. Credit:Justin McManus The controversial cost-cutting measure was announced by the then Gillard government as a way of saving $700 million over four years. It was greeted with an outcry. Many voices, including feminists, welfare groups and some Labor MPs, expressed outrage that a Labor government would cut support to such a vulnerable group. The government promoted the scheme as a way of encouraging parents back to work, but critics point out that 60 per cent of those affected were already working in some capacity. According to the Single Parents Action Group, the effect of the cuts has been so drastic that some women have contemplated suicide. ''I get personal messages from people telling me they want to give up on life and kill themselves because they feel inadequate and unable to support their kids,'' says Bianca Maciel Pizzorno, who manages the national Facebook page for the group. ''I have to direct them on to appropriate support services. It's very distressing.''

She says she also gets messages ''on a fortnightly basis'' from people seeking help for friends who are sleeping in cars or about someone who has turned to prostitution. Kerry Davies, spokeswoman for the Victorian Council For Single Mothers and their Children, says she has spoken to several women who are suicidal. And the council's helpline is regularly contacted by single parents who have been evicted. ''I have answered several calls on the helpline where women have told me they've just spent the night in their cars.'' Michel's 23-hours-a-week job as a community worker in the charity sector meant she was one of 1200 people who could not claim Newstart when she lost the Parenting Payment because she was working too many hours. ''When my payment got cut off, I had to make up the money, so I requested an increase in hours and was lucky to get a few more,'' she says. ''But that meant I had to put my daughter Leila in before- and after-school care four times a week. That's an added expense.'' Michel, 41, cannot afford to buy a car and relies on public transport. It takes her an hour to get to work from her St Kilda home, another hour to collect her daughter from after-school care and then another 25-minute journey home.

Like most families, Michel receives Family Tax Benefit and she is also eligible for concessions on utility bills and pharmaceuticals. But the loss of the Parenting Payment, along with changes to the Education Maintenance Allowance (a state-based benefit), have still hit her hard. Even with the community housing place, she outlays 40 per cent of her earnings on rent. Michel is also grateful that her ex-partner, from whom she split when Leila was two, maintains an active role in his daughter's life and contributes child support. She has no family support in Melbourne. ''There's this big misconception about single mums that they're sitting around not doing anything,'' she says. ''We're all trying to do the best we can.'' The cuts came into force on January 1, despite the fact that the new joint parliamentary committee on human rights recommended a delay until the Newstart Allowance increased. The amount of money that sole parents lost varied according to how many hours a parent was working and whether or not they were studying. For those not working at all, the cuts averaged between $30 and $40 a week. For those with paid work, the cuts were deeper - some lost up to $150 a week. The storm around the scrapping of the Parenting Payment feeds into the bigger debate about the Newstart Allowance. The Australian Council of Social Service says Newstart payments are the equivalent of 77 per cent of the official poverty line. And the Business Council of Australia has called for Newstart to be raised, arguing it creates a barrier to finding work for people surviving on $35 a day.

In January, even Kevin Rudd - then a mere backbencher - urged Julia Gillard's cabinet to show ''a bit of a heart'' and increase Newstart. More recently, with him back in the prime ministerial hot seat, Mr Rudd's spokeswoman would say only that he was discussing the issue with colleagues. Now, with the government in caretaker mode, no one is saying anything. Indeed, despite having previously said that the government was reviewing support payments for single parents in light of community concern, the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations is now silent on the matter. Anglicare Victoria's chief executive, Paul McDonald, says there has been an increase in requests for help from parents since the Parenting Payment changes, which he describes as ''bad policy''. ''This has been promoted as an incentive to work, but in fact it is an incentive to have a more stressed and fractured home life. It starts to fracture not only [the parents'] financial sustainability but their emotional sustainability as well.'' ''You wouldn't think there was a poverty problem in Australia,'' says McDonald. ''I haven't heard the word poverty mentioned once in this election campaign.''

According to2011 Australian Bureau of Statistics' figures, there are about 600,000 single-parent families in Australia. Ninety per cent are headed by women. Over at the Greens campaign head office in Melbourne's CBD, one of those is Pizzorno, a 29-year-old single mum. She has eight-year-old twin boys and lost between $600 and $700 a month from January 1. Pizzorno works on a contract as a paralegal and she can't claim Newstart payments when working. When she is between jobs she now receives Newstart rather than the higher Parenting Payment. As a contract worker, she is not eligible for sick pay or holiday pay and has no job security. She was so incensed by the changes that she started campaigning for the Single Parents Action Group and from there landed a short-term role working for Greens MP Adam Bandt. Pizzorno, who pays $320 a week for a two-bedroom flat in Melbourne's inner east, struggles to make ends meet. She has been a single parent since her sons were three years old. The boys' father moved overseas four years ago and has very little contact with his children. Both sons, one of whom has Asperger's syndrome, see a child psychologist.

''It was really stressful when we lost the Parenting Payment,'' she says. ''I've been on the waiting list for public housing for a couple of years. I've been issued a couple of notices to vacate [my home]; the only way I was able to stay was because of a donation from a friend.'' Before the cuts, she was studying to be a lawyer but that is now on hold because she can no longer afford the books and fees. ''Under the Parenting Payment I was working, studying and just managing to scrape by,'' she says. ''Since the cuts, I've stopped studying, but the impact on the kids is worse.'' She has had to withdraw them from sporting activities and choir because of the cost. ''That involved sitting them down prior to the football season and telling them they wouldn't be able to play with all their friends. One of my sons offered me his piggybank money … Both of them were pretty upset. That was really the last straw for me.'' (The boys' psychologist managed to secure some mental health funding to cover their fees for the season.) When this job with the Greens concludes, Pizzorno will again be looking for work. ''I am absolutely terrified of what will happen to the family … In order to break the cycle of poverty, mums need to get proper qualifications so we can get well-paid jobs but the change to the Parenting Payment has made that even harder.''

Even so, she counts herself among the lucky ones. As a campaigner for the group, she has heard some ''heartbreaking'' stories. A spokeswoman for the Labor Party says the changes from January 1 brought the ''small number of single parents'' affected into line with all others who had previously moved onto Newstart since 2006 and removed the existing ''inequitable arrangements''. ''The majority of recipients also receive family allowances, Schoolkids Bonus, help with childcare costs, rent assistance, concession cards and payments to help with specific costs such as medicine or telephone bills,'' the spokeswoman said. According to the departmental figures, single parents moving off the Parenting Payment have to fulfil the same part-time workforce obligations once they're on Newstart. They have to undertake 30 hours a fortnight of part-time work, study, or training, or a combination of these. But Cassandra Goldie, chief executive of the Australian Council of Social Service says this makes a mockery of Labor's claim the switch was designed to encourage more parents to get jobs.

She says the requirements for work are exactly the same whichever benefit they're on so there is no extra incentive. And the government's failure to respond to concerns is ''extraordinary''. ''We acknowledge we have a revenue challenge in this country but ACOSS does not accept that we're not capable of finding the revenue to address the growing rates of child poverty. One in six children lives below the poverty line,'' Goldie says. The Coalition's shadow minister for employment participation, Sussan Ley, does not oppose the cuts. ''However, we did express enormous concern at the lack of adequate assistance the government offered to help affected parents transition back into the workforce.'' While the government insists the policy change is about encouraging more parents back to work, welfare groups lament the absence of any debate about how children are affected. The National Council of Single Mothers and Their Children has launched a campaign against child poverty called Have a Heart, which capitalises on the comments Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made about Newstart payments back in January. And a coalition of welfare groups is planning rallies against the cuts in several Australian cities this Saturday, including one outside the State Library in Melbourne. The council's chief executive, Terese Edwards, describes the plight of many single mothers as ''distressing'' and the policy as ''counterproductive''.

''There has been a 15 per cent increase in child poverty in this country since 2001,'' she says. ''And there is no evidence that this [policy] will actually help these families or the long-term futures of the children in this country.'' Rachel Kleinman is a Melbourne-based journalist.