The Morrison Lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne are taking a political toll on the Prime Minister, but the Greens say the long-term damage of the mismanagement will land hardest on young people, and are calling on the Prime Minister to ensure no-one is left behind by lifting JobSeeker back to $1,100 a fortnight and implementing JobKeeper 2.0.

Quotes attributable to Greens Leader, Adam Bandt:

“These Morrison lockdowns are hitting many people just as hard as last year, so the Prime Minister must give people the same level of support as before.”

“This budget is a surplus of scatter gun approaches and tinkering around the edges. 
 
“This is a budget that continues the ongoing disdain this Government has for people who have been doing it tough for a long time and for whom things have only got worse due to the global pandemic and recession: people on income support, older women, young people, single parents and disabled people.
 

The Greens say Employment Minister Mr Robert’s cruel comments on the ‘lifestyle’ of people on JobSeeker are not based in any realm of reality in which Australians are living.

“It’s just nonsensical to tell people to get a job when in March there were 238, 700 jobs available and there are 1.5 million people on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance payments”, Senator Rachel Siewert said. 

The Greens have laid the blame for Brisbane’s three-day COVID lockdown at the Morrison government’s door, saying its failure to ensure all frontline healthcare workers are vaccinated has triggered a necessary public health response that will damage already struggling businesses and force more workers into unemployment.

The more than 130,000 people currently receiving JobSeeker in Brisbane will have their safety net slashed to below the poverty line on Thursday after the Coalition and Labor refused to support the Greens’ proposal for an $80 a day payment.

Today the Government gagged the Senate and allowed no time to even debate the first so-called real permanent increase in the Jobseeker Payment since 1994. 

The Greens say that unemployed workers and people living in poverty have been very clear that they want to see their representatives in Parliament supporting and campaigning for them, doing everything they can to increase the rate of JobSeeker above the poverty line. 

“People living in poverty in this cruel punitive income support system feel isolated, they feel abandoned and want people to be vocal in their condemnation of this joke of an increase in the rate of Jobseeker”, Senator Rachel Siewert said.