Two million welfare recipients are set for a boost in their payments as cost-of-living pressures bite, but advocates warn the increase needs to go further to pull people out of poverty.
People on JobSeeker will receive an indexation bonus on top of a $40 increase to the base rate on September 20.
Recipients with no children will receive about $750 a fortnight, up from just over $690.
About 57,000 single parents will also be able to get higher welfare benefits after an eligibility expansion.
Greens MPs have been calling for Labor to go further and raise the income support rate to $88 a day – or $1232 a fortnight – to bring it above the poverty line, but they were shot down by the government and opposition.
Senator Janet Rice said it was disappointing the higher rate wasn’t supported because the legislated rise still condemned vulnerable people to poverty.
“Which is absolutely bad for their wellbeing, their health and their ability to get a job,” she said.
“It is absolutely shameful.”
Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said the higher payment would help those doing it toughest and it would work in tandem with increases to other forms of welfare such as rent assistance as well as cost-of-living relief measures.
She said the new rates struck the right balance between helping Australians and not adding to inflation or putting too much long-term pressure on the budget.
“When we were designing this safety net it was about being carefully calibrated with these factors as well as the cost-of-living pressures people are facing,” Ms Rishworth said.
Independent senator David Pocock – who supported the Greens’ proposed rise – said the government was kidding itself if it thought it could save money on welfare expenditure and not pay for it in other areas like health and policing.
“We’re going to have to pick up the bill eventually and so it’s such short term thinking to think that, ‘Oh, we can just rip away social security payments, have people living in poverty, and that’s better for taxpayers’ – it’s not,” he said.
“We will be paying the cost when it comes to the health of those people who can’t afford fresh food, who can’t afford the basic necessities in life and who certainly can’t afford to fulfil scripts, to go and see the GP when they need it.”
The opposition and the Greens pushed to increase the threshold people could earn before losing their benefits from $150 to $300, with the coalitions’ unsuccessful plan tied to axing the $40 increase.
Liberal frontbencher Anne Ruston said incentivising people to work more hours was a better way to increase employment opportunities than just increasing welfare.
She said it would be too expensive to bake the added expenditure into the budget and wouldn’t help boost workforce participation.
