WELFARE REFORM: THE HARDSHIPS OF "MUTUAL OBLIGATION" A FREE PUBLIC FORUM Saturday 21 April @ 1.00pm Room 11, Level 3, Building 22, RMIT City Campus Corner Swanston and Latrobe Streets, above the RMIT Bookshop Speakers: MR STEPHEN ZIGURAS Research and Policy Project Manager, Brotherhood of St Laurence MS SUE LACKNER RMIT Postgraduate Research Student Research Consultant, Victorian Council of Social Service RSVP to Gillian Davy, Community Advocacy Unit Telephone 9925 2910 or email [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Welfare Cuts Hit 60,000 Victorians" Chloe Saltau, The Age, 19/2/01, abridged More than 60,000 unemployed Victorians, most of them aged in their early 20s, lost all or part of their social security payments last financial year after breaching Centrelink requirements, Federal Government figures reveal. Almost 20,000 people aged between 40 and 49 were penalised nationwide. Gavin Dufty, a policy officer at VCOSS, said the mutual obligation demands on people looking for work, particularly older jobseekers who generally found it more difficult to re-enter the workforce, were unreasonable. He said the high number of breaches - just over 300,000 nationally for the year - was putting a huge burden on state governments and community organisations, which were struggling to help jobseekers whose payments had been reduced. The most severe penalty, for a third breach, is non-payment of benefits for eight weeks. "These figures show that it doesn't matter who you are, if you are on social security there's a real possibility you'll be breached," Mr Dufty said. Gillian Davy Co-ordinator, Community Advocacy Unit School of Social Science and Planning RMIT University GPO Box 2476V Melbourne VIC 3001 http://www.tce.rmit.edu.au/advocacy/ Tel: +61 3 9925 2910 Fax: +61 3 9925 1855 -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
