ALP’s Slashing of Payments to Poor SingleParents Proves Once Again thatNone of The Current Parliamentary PartiesShould Be Supported at The Upcoming Elections
Don’t Let Our Fellow Workers Who Lose Their Jobs Become Destitute!
Unleash Militant Class Struggle to Restore the Single Parent Payment and Massively Increase both the parentingPayment and Newstart Allowance!
Smash the ALP Government’s Attack on Low-Income Single Mothers!
The three big stooges of the big business elite. Although they have outlined slightly different plans about how to administer Australia (in the interests of the capitalist exploiting class), all have shown contempt for the plight of low income single mothers.Mission Impossible: A jobless single mother trying to get by following the government’s slashing of the single parenting payment. Her Centrelink payment form, shown above and typical of the situation faced by many other single mothers, shows that, after payments for rent (which are shown here after Rent Assistance is deducted from rent costs), electricity and loan repayments for basic household electrical goods (this woman elected to have these repayments and her electricity costs automatically deducted), there is hardly anything left over! Even if the small court fine repayment did not exist, the amount she has left is not anywhere near enough to cover her own food, phone bills, medicine and transport for a fortnight – let alone clothing or any hope of entertainment! That means she is forced to use some of the meagre Family Tax Benefit payments, meant to help her pay for some of her three dependent children’s expenses, in order to survive. Her whole family is thus dragged into poverty. Tens of thousands of other families in Australia headed by single mothers face the same plight.Beijing, March 2010: Deputies from southwest China’s Yunnan Province arrive for a sitting of China’s parliament, the National Peoples Congress. Although undermined by bureaucratic deformation and a degree of capitalist intrusion, socialistic rule in China has brought a big leap forward for women’s rights. This is especially clear when comparing the status of women in China with that of capitalist developing countries like India and Pakistan. When socialism triumphs in Australia, women will be liberated from the oppression that they face today.Wodonga, Victoria, October 2012: Unionised disability service workers protest against poor wages and conditions. Women workers, united together in workers’ organisations with their male counterparts, are destined to play a key role in the struggle against exploitation and oppression. Trotskyist Platform “Marriage is Sex Slavery. Poverty is Not Newstart” – Sydney, March 2013: A contingent of single mothers at the International Women’s Day march protested against the ALP government’s cruel cut to the single parenting payment. However, desperate not to upset the electoral prospects of the ALP and the Greens (who had been in a defacto coalition with the ALP at the time of the cutback), march organisers gave the single mothers’ struggle short shrift in the official part of the rally.
Women from the masses will play a leading role in the revolutionary struggle against Australian capitalism as they did in the victorious Chinese Revolution that toppled capitalist rule there in 1949. The above scene from the world famous Chinese ballet, The Red Detachment of Women, celebrates the contribution of Chinese women to the revolution. Based on the true stories of Chinese women who joined a company of the communist liberation army in Hainan Island, the ballet tells of the life of a peasant woman who wrests herself from brutal oppression at the hands of the landlords and goes on to become a leader of the anti-capitalist forces. The above ballet scene is taken from a performance by the renowned National Ballet of China in Tianjin city on 26 September 2009 as part of celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution/founding of the Peoples Republic of China.Sydney, December 2012: Picket outside Sargents Pie factory.
March 8, 2013: At the turn of the year, Australian billionaire James Packer and his family were enjoying first use of their latest family toy: a 52-metre super yacht costing over $50 million! However, for tens of thousands of low-income, single parents the reality could not be more different. They are now going to struggle, even more than before, to buy their children medicine let alone merely a $2 toy. The ALP federal government has thrown over 84,000 low-income single parents off the Parenting Payment and on to the much lower Newstart Allowance. If this isn’t bad enough, those single parents who have part-time jobs face even more savage cuts to their income as the Newstart Allowance is more ruthless than the Parenting Payment in cutting payments to those who do manage to find any part-time work.
Single parents with children over eight years old who were new applicants for income support were actually first thrown onto the lower unemployment payment back in 2006 by the Howard Liberal government. However, those already receiving payments were allowed to continue to receive the higher Parenting Payment until their child turned 16. When the ALP came into office, it not only maintained the policy of dumping new applicants onto Newstart but in the 2011 budget additionally threw those still receiving the Parenting Payment with children over 12 onto Newstart as well. Now, continuing to maintain the disgusting direction first taken by Howard, it has dumped onto Newstart those with children between 8 and 12 who, previously under their old rules, had still been receiving the Parenting Payment.
Don’t Let Our Fellow Workers Who Lose Their Jobs Become Destitute! Unleash Militant Class Struggle
Fight for a Huge Increase in the Newstart Allowance and Smash the ALP Government’s Attackon Low-Income Single Mothers!
ALP’s Slashing of Payments to Poor Single Parents Proves Once Again that None of The Current Parliamentary Parties Should Be Supported at The Upcoming Elections
March 8, 2013: At the turn of the year, Australian billionaire James Packer and his family were enjoying first uses of their latest family toy: a 52-metre super yacht costing over $50 million! However, for tens of thousands of low-income, single parents the reality could not be more different. They are now going to struggle, even more than before, to buy their children medicine let alone merely a $2 toy. The ALP federal government has thrown over 84,000 low-income single parents off the Parenting Payment and on to the much lower Newstart Allowance. If this isn’t bad enough, those single parents who have part-time jobs face even more savage cuts to their income as the Newstart Allowance is more ruthless than the Parenting Payment in cutting payments to those who do manage to find any part-time work. Continue reading Unleash Militant Class Struggle. Fight for a Huge Increase in the Newstart Allowance and Smash the ALP Government’s Attack on Low-Income Single Mothers!→
Sydney, 8 June 2011: Over 5,000 community sector workers and their supporters stop work and march for Equal Pay.
15 December 2010: Sydney rally for Equal Pay. Female-dominated community sector workers are underpaid in comparison with others doing equivalent work.
Sydney, December 2010: Equal Pay struggle has brought together women and men trade unionists of different ethnicities.
Turn the widespread support for the campaign
into the strike action that can bring victory
Equal Pay for Equal Work!
Don’t Let Governments Tell You They Can’t Afford It –
Ripping Wealth from The Greedy Tycoons Will Easily Fund Equal Pay!
June 8 – Over 5,000 community sector workers and their supporters marched through Sydney City today to demand Equal Pay for Equal Work. The Sydney rally was part of nationwide stop works and rallies by community sector workers angry at how badly they are being paid. Community sector workers are truly getting a raw deal. These workers – who include childcare workers and disability and aged carers – are doing the same work as other workers (like public sector workers) and often have equivalent qualifications. But they are getting paid much less. This discrimination has much to do with the fact that 85% of community-sector workers are women. Continue reading Equal Pay for Equal Work! Don’t Let Governments Tell You They Can’t Afford It – Ripping Wealth from The Greedy Tycoons Will Easily Fund Equal Pay!→
