Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to bring to the attention of the House the parlous state of affairs for people living on Newstart in my electorate. I want to highlight Caryn Hearsch. Caryn met with me recently, and she has asked me personally to stand in this parliament and tell her story. She is 61 years of age. In 2013, after 44 years of continuous employment, she found herself unemployed for the first time. In the first period of that unemployment, she wrote 720 job applications and she retrained. She did manage to get some employment for 12 months as a teacher's aid, but again finds herself trying to survive on Newstart. She is doing 15 hours volunteer work a week at Werribee Support and Housing, which highlights for her not only how difficult her own life is, trying to pay a mortgage, pay the bills and get medical attention, but also how difficult it is for others.

Caryn desperately wants the Prime Minister to hear this story to understand how tough living on $40 a day is. Caryn wants him to know she wants a job; she wants a job now. She doesn't want to be on Newstart, but if she is on Newstart she wants to be able to live on Newstart. I call on the Prime Minister to think about the Caryn Hearsches of the world all across Australia and do something in response to their pleas.