Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am disappointed again in this government and their announcement today around their plans for JobSeeker. Thousands of people across my electorate are on JobSeeker and the Newstart rate. Before COVID, there were about 5,000 people. Today it is 10,000 because of COVID, and they have just been hit with the hardest news: their JobSeeker payments will drop. They will go back not to $40 a day but to $43.75 a day—yes, it's a slight increase, a very small increase, but that's all they get to live on. The government should be ashamed of themselves at the way they're treating people who are looking for work. Not only are they going to have to survive on poverty wages, but the government is going to say that they have to look for 15 jobs a month, then 20 from 1 July. What jobs, government? Right now, there are eight jobseekers for every job. What jobs are you talking about?

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