Welfare benefits bill out of control, percentage of claimants still not below 20 per cent

EXCLUSIVE: THE Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott and Turnbull governments have all failed to get the percentage of Australians claiming welfare below 20 per cent during the past decade.

• NATIONAL WELFARE BILL SOARS TO $200B A YEAR
• WELFARE DEPENDENCY COSTS US $160B A YEAR

THE Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott and Turnbull governments have all failed to get the percentage of Australians claiming welfare below 20 per cent during the past decade.

An analysis of welfare ­recipients between 2005 and 2015, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, has revealed more than 20 per cent of Aussies have been claiming welfare every single year during the 10-year analysis period.

During that same time, Australia has had six prime ministerial changes, with varying policies, but none of the leaders have been able to successfully curb the ballooning welfare bill as successive governments struggled to ­balance the budget.

Last financial year there were 5,178,379 people claiming welfare, with a 10-year high of 21.8 per cent of the population receiving some form of payment. Those ­figures do not include carers’ allowances or families who claim family tax benefits.

The closest any government came to slashing ­welfare numbers was Kevin Rudd in 2008, when 20.1 per cent of the population ­received payments.

The analysis emerged after The Telegraph yesterday reported the number of people on the dole had grown 70 per cent in the past decade, with the welfare bill projected to rise from $158 billion this year to $191 billion in 2019-20.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter, who believes the annual welfare bill is on the “edge of sustainability”, said parliament needed to consider sweeping reform measures. “We need to try something different,’’ he said. “Find a better way of helping people move out of welfare receipt, become self-reliant and ­improve their lives.”

Mr Porter said he believed there were too many different welfare payments, which allowed some people to hide in the system.

“One of the problems with the present welfare system is the very large number of ­welfare payments that ­working-age Australians can ­receive,’’ he said. “There are 16 payments in total, which creates a complicated, confusing and inconsistent system overall.”

The government will use data-matching technology to spot people who are long-term recipients in a bid to get them into the ­workforce.

“The government’s intention is to use the data that we have assembled through Australian Priority Investment Approach to target reforms in the welfare system to the groups who have high risks of long-term welfare dependency by transitioning more of those Australians into work,’’ Mr Porter said.

Labor remains opposed to multiple welfare reform proposals, headlined by a Turnbull government push to make young Australians wait a month for access to the dole.

Last financial year there were 5,178,379 people claiming welfare, with a 10-year high of 21.8 per cent of the population receiving some form of payment.