Suspend activists’ welfare, say MPs

Michaelia Cash has threatened to suspend the welfare of activists who protest instead of job hunting.

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash. Picture: Gary Ramage

Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has threatened to suspend the welfare payments of activists who spend their time protesting instead of looking for jobs.

Senator Cash told The Australian the government would ­always be focused on getting “people off welfare and into work” after Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton urged the community to push back against disruptive protesters.

“Taxpayers should not be ­expected to subsidise the protests of others. Protesting is not, and never will be, an exemption from a welfare recipient’s mutual obligation to look for a job,” Senator Cash said.

“Those who refuse to look for a job because they are too busy protesting may find they have their payments suspended.”

In an interview on Sydney radio 2GB on Thursday, Mr Dutton took aim at magistrates who imposed “slap on the wrist” penalties for protesters, declaring Queensland should introduce mandatory sentences for those who regularly disrupt the community.

It comes after six people were charged with obstruction offences on Wednesday after a road-blocking protest by climate activist group Extinction Rebellion disrupted the Brisbane CBD during peak hour.

Two days earlier, four people involved in the same group were charged over a protest in which a woman climbed up a large tripod on a high-traffic CBD bridge at a similar time.

“The state government can pass laws that do reflect community standards and, at the ­moment, they don’t,” Mr Dutton told 2GB.

“The community expectation is that these people are fined or jailed and they should be jailed until their behaviour changes ­because they’re diverting police and emergency service resources from tasks they should be undertaking otherwise.”

Radio host Ray Hadley said three of the protesters who ­attached themselves to the Brisbane streets were welfare recipients, and argued that the benefit should be removed.

Mr Dutton responded by saying: “I agree, Ray.”

Mr Dutton said the community needed to “push back” against the “unacceptable” behaviour seen by those in the recent protest action.

“People should take these names and the photos of these people and distribute them as far and wide as they can so that we shame these people,” he said. “Let their families know what you think of their behaviour.”

The scrapping of welfare payments for activists who broke the law also won the backing of other LNP MPs.

Llew O’Brien, the member for Wide Bay and a former police ­officer, told The Australian recipients of welfare payments were obligated to look for a job and warned that the decision to “glue themselves to the road” could put people’s lives at risk.

Knowing what it was like to urgently get to a situation, “when you’ve got some idiot who has decided to take part in an activity that can potentially block ambulances, fire engines and police, they should be going to jail”.