Toothpaste too costly for senator    

Date
    April 16, 2012


WA Green Senator Rachel Siewert exposed herself to a social experiment.    

WA Greens Senator Rachel Siewert is trying to live on $35 a day in a bid to highlight that the meagre dole was causing jobseekers to be sucked into a cycle of poverty.

Rachel Siewert has $12 in her wallet for the rest of the week.

She went shopping on the weekend and bought some basic food items and toilet paper totalling $53, but if she runs out of toothpaste, she will just have to go without.

This week Ms Siewert is living off the average weekly Newstart Allowance payment in a bid to highlight what she says is a system which makes it even more difficult for job seekers to get out of unemployment.    


The $244 she started with on Saturday has quickly been taken up by the essentials.    

While in reality, she will remain in her four-bedroom, two-bathroom house in the northern suburbs, $125 has been deducted from her budget to pay for the one bedroom unit in Bentley or Armadale, which would be all she could afford on Newstart.    

Thankfully for her, the amount has been subsidised down from $185 due to the rent assistance that she would be eligible for as a jobseeker.

Small amounts of money are also set aside for electricity, gas and public transport.

On her budget, Ms Siewert can only afford pre-paid phone credit, which she has spent $10 on and she has also put $5 of fuel into her car.

She is hoping her car doesn't have any issues throughout the week, because the $12 in her wallet would not cover a new battery let alone a tow truck.

After taking all of these expenses into account, there was about $17 left, but Ms Siewert also has a health condition which requires her to take iron tablets every day - that is another $4.10 gone.    

While she admits she would usually pop into a cafe and spend $4 on a coffee without too much thought, this week she is sticking to coffee made at home with ground coffee beans, so after deducting that cost, the remainder in Ms Siewert's wallet is $12.

Tonight she will make zucchini slice for dinner and have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Being a vegetarian may have helped to keep her food bill down - if she had have bought meat she may not have had any money for the rest of the week.    

The money she does have, Ms Siewert will keep in case she needs something throughout the week or something unexpected comes up, but she does not have much planned in terms of socialising.

"There'll be no activities that cost money, not much social activities, no movies, I'm fond of a movie but I won't even be able to hire a DVD," she said.    

Her days will be spent learning about the processes involved in searching for work.

This morning she is attending a place called Ready to Work.

"When you're on Newstart you can't afford new clothes, so your clothes get worn down, it's hard to afford cosmetics and shoes and nice clothes for an interview," Ms Siewert said.

The staff at Ready to Work help jobseekers with these things so they can present themselves in the necessary manner for a job interview.

She will be talking to jobseekers and service providers throughout the week to hear about their experiences.

Ms Siewert said her experiment this week would only scratch the surface of what jobseekers on Newstart have to go through.    

She said people often became socially isolated and also had to go into debt.

"It's a cycle of poverty which just makes it harder to get out of," Ms Siewert said.

She said the government excused what she believed were unfairly low payments by saying that if the payments were higher, people would not have an incentive to find work.

"We're arguing for at least a $50 a week increase," she said.

"That's just $7 extra a day."

Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/toothpaste-too-costly-for-senator-20120415-1x1a6.html#ixzz2GkzNtMsU

With thousands of migrants being employed on 457 visas there is no reason for anyone to be on the dole for longer than a few months at the most.
The question should be "how can we motivate these bludgers to get off their fat arses" not "how much more money should we throw at them".

Sir Spot of Borg wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2013 at 6:45am:


You wouldn't even get a tent-site at a caravan-park for that, would you?

There's another, hidden issue here, too.

Many estate agents will not rent to the unemployed under any circumstances.

again this points out why its more important to rely on developing relationships with family and friends than it is to develop a relationship with governments.

smart people would focus on developing good strong community bonds and networks rather than expecting canberra to put a roof over their heads.

if you are unemployed and have been a good community citizen and helpful member of your extended family network, then offers of free accomodation should come flooding in.
you should have family and friends clamboring over each other to give you a roof over your head AND free toothpaste.

if youve been a whiney sook who wanted to breastfeed off canberra for eternity , then thats just karma baby.

you should have been less selfish when you had the chance and developed meaningful networks with quality people.

Quote:


You can't reason with closed minds.

Travel through Australias fruit and veg growing regions at the moment and you'll see thousands of migrant workers in the fields and packing sheds.
Look in the hospitals and you'll also notice thousands of migrant doctors and nurses..even the various state police forces have to bring in migrants to fill places.
This is just a tiny portion of jobs that are filled with migrants who are bought here to fill positions Australians do not want to do or cant be stuffed getting the qualifications to do.

Quote:


And as we know the long term unemployed are experts at getting around actually getting a job.
The dole should cut out after 6 months..no ifs no buts no maybes

No it shold not, there should be no time limit on it.  People on the dole, are already survivig in poverty.