Nationals leader’s solution to low Newstart rates: move to Dubbo

Deputy PM Michael McCormack has pushed back on calls from within his partyroom to support an increase in Newstart.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack in question time. Picture: AAP

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has pushed back on calls from within his partyroom to support an increase in Newstart, urging people who are out of work to move to regional towns such as Dubbo, where there are “so many jobs”.

The Nationals leader said the welfare payment should only be a “stopgap” measure and that people­ should be willing to pack up and move if there was a job in anothe­r part of the country. “There are jobs out there in region­al Australia, and there are good paying jobs,’’ Mr McCormack told Sky News.

“And what I think we do need in this country is a more mobile workforce. So people have to be prepared to move sometimes out of their comfort zone and out of their home town to the next town to take a job.

“A job, any job, will be better than none at all. And it will be bette­r than living on welfare. And certainly with Newstart it is that stopgap. It is that safety measure. It is not supposed to be a living wage as such.”

The rate for single, childless recipient­s is $555.70 a fortnight and the payment has dropped 40 per cent in real terms over the past quarter of a century.

The pushback on the measure came after former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce called for an increase­ to the payment and raised the issue in the joint partyroom yesterday. Mr Joyce told The Australian yesterday not every person out of work was able to move to another part of the country.

“There are some instances where you can absolutely do that but in some instances you can’t,” Mr Joyce said. “A single mother who may be going through part-time work, who has to deal with the issues where they are, probably doesn’t have the resources to move to another town. For some people it is not possible.”

Figures released by Mr McCormack’s office showed there were 4300 job vacancies in far north Queensland in May; more than 3000 in the Gold Coast and Hunter regions; and more than 2000 job vacancies in central Queensland and on the NSW north coast.

But Labor hit back with figures showing that 12 of the 20 electorates with the most Newstart recipients were based in the regions, with the Northern Territory seat of Lingiari the highest, with 11,442 people on the payment.

The regional Queensland seat of Leichhardt and regional West Australian seat of Durack also had among the highest number of Newstart recipients in the nation, with 9970 and 9525 respectively.

Opposition social services spokeswoman Linda Burney said: “Barnaby Joyce gets it. Why doesn’t the Deputy Prime Minister?” The Labor caucus agreed yesterd­ay to push the government to increase the rate of Newstart but would not name a figure.

After a week of his MPs speaking out on Newstart, Scott Morrison urged his team yesterday to stop airing the issue via the media.

“Where there are issues that need to be explored, I would urge colleagues to use the internal processes available to each of us,’’ the Prime Minister told the partyroom, according to a government source. “Talking to ministers and using backbench committees and discussing matters in the partyroom: they are the processes you can use to get things done.”