Single mums bristle at Macklin gaffe
SUE DUNLEVY
News Limited Network
January 03, 201312:00AM
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• Jenny Macklin salary: $900 a day
• Jenny Macklin parliamentary expenses: $1577 a day
• Unemployment benefit: $35 a day
• Average left after paying rent: $16.50 a day
Bandt’s dole challenge
Macklin says dole is enough to live on
Single mum Wendy Tucker, at home with da
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Bandt’s dole challenge
Acting Greens leader Adam Bandt has challenged Minister Jenny Macklin to spend a week living on the dole with him.
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Macklin says dole is enough to live on
As changes to Government payments for single parents take effect, the Minister for Families, Jenny Macklin, says she could live on the dole
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Single mum Wendy Tucker, at home with daughter Jessie, 10, will be affected by the Government’s cuts to single parent payments. Picture: TobyZerna Source: News Limited
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SHE claims she could live on the $38-a-day dole payment, but cabinet minister Jenny Macklin spent $1577 a day on travel, comcars and hotel rooms last year.
These ministerial expenses were on top of the $903 a day salary she earns.
Single mums pushed on to the dole from January 1 yesterday expressed outrage at Ms Macklin’s assertion she could get by on the government allowance.
Greens MP: Minister can join me in trying it for a week
Sydney woman Wendy Tucker, who works two-and-a-half days a week as a bookeeper, will lose $170 a fortnight under the changes that will see her stripped of her single parent payment.
“I’m feeling completely desperate after my car was written off a couple of weeks ago,” she said.
“The minister gets $903 a day. I could live like a queen on that.”
Single mothers were given just five weeks notice of the cutbacks by Centrelink and they have hit while children are on school holidays, Ms Tucker said.
Jobs were also hard to find as many companies had shut down for Christmas, she added.
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Greens acting leader Adam Bandt yesterday challenged Ms Macklin to join him in trying to live on the dole amount for a week in February.
“To show how hard it is for many people to make ends meet, I will try living on Newstart for a week in February and I invite the minister to join me,” he said.
Housing Minister Brendan O’Connor slammed Mr Bandt for being “patronising”, but Combined Pensioners Association president Pat Warriner said she would “love to see the minister try it for a month”.
Council of Single Mothers and their Children spokeswoman Terese Edwards said almost half the single parents hit by the cuts were already working and stood to lose the most cash under the changes – up to $233 a fortnight.
Around 10,000 single mums will lose their benefits altogether and miss out of the pensioner concession card that gave them and their children access to cheap medicines, electricity and telephone costs, she said.
Australian Council of Social Services chief Cassandra Goldie said she didn’t see the need for the minister to prove she could live off the dole.
“Frankly the evidence is in already,” she said. “Three parliamentary inquiries have said Newstart is inadequate, research has found on average someone on Newstart has $16.50 a day to live on after you take out housing costs.”
The minister did not make any comment yesterday but parliamentary records show she racked up more than $290,000 in work-related expenses in the first six month of 2012.
She has responsibility for indigenous affairs and travels to remote regions as part of her job, which pushed up her expense bill. And an eight-day visit to Canada to speak at the World Indigenous Housing conference in June cost $52,000.