BY NICK EVERETT

SYDNEY — Angry at federal budget plans to further erode access to social security and toughen “mutual obligation”, local residents, indigenous community representatives, welfare recipients and Centrelink staff met in inner-city Redfern on May 23 to kick off a campaign for increased welfare rights.

More onerous requirements will only mean more financial penalties, said the Welfare Rights Centre's Danny Shaw, and it would be “those homeless, transient or mentally ill that would be hardest hit”. Centrelink breaches have already increased by 250% since the introduction of “mutual obligation”, he said.

The budget is also bad news for Centrelink workers, according to Mark Gepp of the Community and Public Sector Union. While the government has announced “850 new Centrelink jobs in the next three years, none of these will be introduced in the next 12 months and they do little to replace the 5000 jobs already cut by the Howard government,” he said.

ALP state assistant secretary Damien O'Connor read out a statement from local Labor member Tanya Plibersek, which criticised cuts to social welfare but stopped short of a commitment to reverse them. Opposition spokesperson for social security Wayne Swan would announce a more detailed policy shortly, O'Connor explained.

Speaking on behalf of the Socialist Alliance, Sarah Stephen stated that more than a reversal of cuts was needed, stating “The Socialist Alliance takes the view that unemployment is a structural part of a competitive, profit-based economic system.”

“The only obligation we support”, Stephens said, “is the obligation of the government to create jobs, with decent wages, to reduce unemployment once and for all.”

The meeting resolved to support a rally initiated by the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association on June 7.

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