How fair are unemployment benefits?

Media Coverage - ABC TV 7.30, 5 October 2011

The ABC reported there was consensus at this week’s Canberra tax forum on an unexpected issue. Experts from business and welfare groups all agreed that the unemployment benefit, or Newstart Allowance, is too low.

They say it's penalising the jobless, making it harder for people to get work and condemning the long-term unemployed to poverty. This came on the same day that one of Australia's top investment bankers called on the Government to take more tax from the rich.   

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald report on the tax summit said that Newstart unemployment benefit shrank so much relative to living costs that the cheapest capital city accommodation took all but $16.50 a day.

Peter Whiteford, of the social policy research centre at the University of NSW, told the summit the cheapest one-bedroom accommodation in the Sydney region could be found at Wyong, on the Central Coast. The Melbourne equivalent would be Melton South on the city’s north-western fringe.

Read The Sydney Morning Herald article or watch Stephen Long’s report for 7.30.