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March 29th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
DOLE payments must be increased immediately to prevent some of the nation’s poorest sliding deeper into poverty, a leading social welfare group said.
The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the nation’s peak social welfare group, wants Newstart unemployment payments immediately increased by $50 a week.
In future it wants the payments linked to growth of the nation’s wages rather than the consumer price index.
ACOSS president Simon Schrapel said current Newstart payments, which for a single person with no children are $489.70 a fortnight, were unfair.
That equates to about $35 a day.
“The most compelling reason we’re asking for an increase, and our call is for an immediate $50 a week increase in the rate of Newstart and proper indexation arrangements to be put in place after that… is that the current payments are palpably unfair,” Mr Schrapel said.
He said the current arrangement “consigns recipients to a life of poverty”.
Mr Schrapel was speaking at the start of the ACOSS national conference in Sydney today.
He said there was a growing gap in inequality between the nation’s richest and poorest.
And research suggested that single Newstart recipient on a frugal budget slip into $9 a week debt.
“We should repudiate the trickle-down theory that some people continue to espouse; that as long as there is wealth in the country eventually it will trickle down,” he said.
Treasurer Wayne Swan spoke to the conference after Mr Schrapel but did not directly address the call for increased welfare.
Instead, he spoke about the benefits of sharing the nation’s wealth among the entire community.
“We want more people to have a stake in our economic success,” Mr Swan said.
“We have the capacity to shape the century to decide the way in which we share the gains.
“And my determination is that more Australians will enjoy the benefits of the Asian century.”
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