Labor’s priority is jobs, despite dole-rise review

Lifting Newstart is a priority for Labor if it wins government.

Lifting Newstart is a priority for Labor if it wins government — and even the business lobby says increasing unemployment payments is a good idea.

Labor will review the Newstart allowance before the party’s nat­ional conference in December, with Bill Shorten saying payments are too low.

“We don’t know what number we’ll come up with ... at the end of the review, but I’m not going stand here and say that someone on $260 a week is doing it easy; they are not,” the Opposition Leader told the Nine Network yesterday.

Mr Shorten said Labor’s primary concern would be to make sure unemployed people found a job “and make sure we encourage people to work”.

“At the same time, I’m not going to start kicking a person who is down in the head, am I?

“That’s what we do when we say ‘bad luck’,” Mr Shorten said. Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said almost 730,000 people were on Newstart at the end of June this year.

“Almost half have been receiving the payment for two years or more, and almost 25,000 Australians have been on Newstart for 10 years or more,” she told the ­National Press Club.

“The Newstart allowance for single people in this situation is ­inadequate.”

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said Labor was feeling the heat but still couldn’t bring themselves to raise Newstart. “They could commit right now to a new Labor government lifting New­start by at least $75 a week.

“That’s the absolute minimum required to bring 640,000 people above the poverty line,” he said.

AAP