Labor mea culpa cold comfort to mums

LABOR'S mea culpa on welfare cuts to sole parents has come too little too late for single mothers battling to survive on $35-a-day dole payments.

The two men vying for the federal Labor leadership - Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese - have admitted the party did the wrong thing when it implemented welfare cuts this year.

They say the party needs to revisit its policy stance, but single mothers say it's cold comfort.

In January, tens of thousands of single mothers, many working part time, were shifted off parenting payments and onto the unemployment benefit, Newstart, leaving many between $60 and $100 a week worse off.

The decision was to save taxpayers $728 million over four years.

Mr Shorten, as employment minister in the Gillard government, was responsible for introducing the changes.

"We sent all the wrong messages out about sole parents," Mr Shorten told Network Ten on Sunday.

"I think the measures we took have had the wrong consequences."

He said there were legitimate grievances and Labor needed to make it clear it was in the single mothers' corner.

"We respect you, we support you and we cherish you," he said.

Mr Albanese, who grew up in a single-parent home, said single parents had told him the decision showed a lack of respect.

"Labor must always be the party of the disadvantaged," he told ABC TV.

"We must be very clear about our values and what we stand for as a framework."

But he wouldn't blame anyone for driving the policy, saying it was time Labor stopped "finger-pointing".

"We have to take collective responsibility," he said.

"I was a member of the government and I don't seek to blame any individual."

Terese Edwards from the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children said the admission Labor had made a mistake wasn't enough.

"We welcome the courage in saying they got it wrong," she told AAP.

"But it must go beyond that and they must show how they are going to champion the cause, what are they going to do from opposition."

Ms Edwards said it was an uphill battle to get the welfare cuts reversed because the coalition supported the policy and had been responsible for the first wave of welfare changes to single parents in 2006.

She also questioned Mr Shorten's motivation for highlighting the need to tackle the scourge of domestic violence on Sunday.

"The Labor party, should, have and always will stand up for the dispossessed, the disempowered and the voiceless," Mr Shorten told a rally in Ipswich, Queensland.

Ms Edwards said she was aware of three cases of single mothers and their children having to return to domestic violence situations or face homelessness as a direct result of poverty they experienced from the welfare changes.

"There's absolutely no question about the correlation between trying to be safe and also having enough to live on," she said.

A spokesman for Mr Shorten said he had a "longstanding interest in combating violence against women".

A spokesman for new Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews said Labor's admission the parenting payment changes were a mistake was little comfort to those affected.

But he wouldn't say whether the Abbott government would consider reversing the policy.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Labor mea culpa cold comfort to mums

Dengan url

http://tempatistirahatan.blogspot.com/2013/09/labor-mea-culpa-cold-comfort-to-mums.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Labor mea culpa cold comfort to mums

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Labor mea culpa cold comfort to mums

sebagai sumbernya