Hard times

12/9/2019

Ian Simmons describes the shock of trying to survive on
the Newstart allowance.

By Ian Simmons

WE ARRIVED in Melbourne from the UK in 1988. Within three days I was in a full-time management role and I continued in various management roles until 2016.

In 2011, with the children having finished school, we were ready for a lifestyle change. My wife left her job to supervise the completion of our new house in South Gippsland. I was working as Gippsland territory manager and my salary could support our lifestyle.

When that job finished in January 2016, we started our first period on the Newstart allowance, with an income of approximately $500 per week. This was 50 per cent less than we needed to maintain a basic lifestyle in South Gippsland.

Cartoon: Natasha Williams-Novak

During May 2017 I found employment with a contract facilities company working at a major local site. The company was interested in the $10,000 subsidy for employing a worker over 60. The role lasted until Christmas Eve 2018, and I went back on to the Newstart allowance in the new year of 2019.

Here is a weekly cost breakdown of our expenses:

South Gippsland Rates $75
South Gippsland Water $20
Various insurances $80
Electricity $75
Car registration $25
Food $125
Phones $50
Gas $10
Septic $10
Petrol $50

Total $520

It leaves a shortfall for the maintenance of house/land/self and cars, for dental treatment (there is a two-year wait for the free service), and for spending money – so you have to erode your assets to survive.

Living on Newstart is immensely stressful. You have to change your diet and management of time.

With the return to Newstart in 2019 come the form filling and little action to complete the claims. Centrelink follows procedure at one speed. During my periods of Newstart I have applied for over 400 positions in a vast area of south east Melbourne. I apply for jobs via Seek/Linked in – most reply, and the interview rate is about one in 25 applications. Job providers aren't equipment to handle professional people.

My employment provider asks why my applications aren’t succeeding! I’m now approaching 65 and the job prospects look poor in the South Gippsland area. My CV doesn’t show my age or location, but a good recruiter can calculate your age from your experience.

We never expected to be living hand to mouth at this stage of our lives.

Recently I met our local MP Russell Broadbent to discuss the rate of Newstart and the effect on recipients. I had a challenge for either himself or Scott Morrison to swap salaries for a month with my Newstart allowance and measure their survival.

Russell’s comment: “I could not survive on Newstart.”

Neither can we!

20 Comments

Marie Gerrard -staton

14/9/2019 09:31:32 am

Thanks You speak for many of us .come to our south gippsland action group rated protest meeting on weds night in the Poowong Hall at 7pm.Be great to meet you .

Sunny

14/9/2019 01:56:49 pm

Thanks for sharing, more people need to share their stories. Your weekly expenses seem a lot, $50 per week for phones, I pay $10 a month for a 28 day plan (sim card only), and also your electricity is high, shop around and why is your petrol so high, I never go anywhere, you need to live like you are in poverty and not expect the same lifestyle.

PeeBee

14/9/2019 06:26:16 pm

Ian, new start allowance is meagre, but it is not meant to replace your salary. It is a welfare safety net. You are fortunate because of your employment history and because of the highly paid managerial positions you held, you should have a large super balance. You should be accessing that (and most probably that of your wife) to help you make do.

Hayden

15/9/2019 02:19:18 pm

When income support was actually set up by Robert Menzies he said people should have the same right to make a claim for income support with the same dignity as any other insurance policy they had paid into their entire lives.

In no way did that have a sub clause of using up all of ones resources that are supposed to save them from claiming so much from the old age pension. So when do you want them to use that vs claiming against this insurance policy as they’re well entitled to???

Leslie

15/9/2019 06:02:13 pm

We all seem to agree that the Newstart allowance is meagre. What I question is the assumption that this is somehow an incentive for people to find work.

Ian's story is very typical - he is definitely seeking work, he wants a job. But who's hiring older jobseekers?

It would seem that only employers who receive Government subsidies. And, as Ian experienced, when the handout runs out, the job runs out..

How long will we have a system that punishes people for the Federal Government's failure to create reliable pathways to accessible and meaningful employment?

When will Scot Morrison provide that fair go for those like Ian who are having a go?

Kaz

15/9/2019 06:15:11 pm

PeeBee.....whats a salary? I work in a gig economy, most contracts are short term, have few salaried workers benifits like sick leave or ongoing superanuation, between my current contract and my last one I was two years on partial Newstart which supplemented short term, low paid unstable temp work. I am 49 and have 20,000 in Super I can't access and sometimes travel 2.5 hours to get to a 3 hour shift job. Talk about salaries when there Gov gaurentees are some available and I will take your comment seriously.

ian

16/9/2019 03:51:56 pm

Both Sunny and PeeBee are missing the point of Newstart is below the Henderson poverty level of $507 and actual poverty level in now close$700 per week. Supa is designed to used at retirement age not support periods of unemployment as KAZ comment travelling 2 hours for 3 hour shift - cost effective, if he could access supa it would soon erode.

Sunny

16/9/2019 03:57:42 pm

Ian I was not missing the point, I actually said he has to live like he is in poverty, I already know Newstart is below the poverty line, and he needs to adjust his living expenses, I doubt this Government will raise Newstart,they are more interested in cashless cards and drug testing unemployed, which will cost more to implement than to raise Newstart.

PeeJay

18/9/2019 11:32:09 am

People keep missing the point ... the Newstart allowance is exactly that, an allowance. It is not a pension and is only intended to assist people subsidise their own savings while seeking employment. At the age of 62 I found myself in a new State, in a regional area without a job although somehow I had had the foresight to buy an investment property while still working in Sydney.
I had been made redundant over the years (the perils of the early computer industry) and generally managed to find employment as the market place was bigger and healthier. Also I wasn't too proud and took whatever look interesting even if it wasn't in my preferred area of employment.
I applied for twelve jobs after arriving in Wonthaggi but, hey, I'm not local, I was judged as over qualified and I was nearing the end of my working life, so voila! I found volunteering work to meet my requirements under Newstart and waited for the pension to kick in.
I was having trouble handling my money after I spent my meagre superannuation on extending the investment property to make it liveable. Fortunately, I found a very helpful woman at the local ANZ bank who introduced me to budgeting!
To make a comparison to Ian's figures, my fortnightly budget is -
South Gippsland Rates $11.00
South Gippsland Water $17.50
Insurances (Home & Car) $27.00
Electricity $17.50
Food $150.00 (including $15 for the magpies!)
Telephone/Internet $16.50
Gas $16.50
Sewerage is included in Rates
Petrol $9.00
It is quite apparent that Ian has a different lifestyle to me and good on him. However, regardless of whether we are relying on the Government for support or our own savings, we need to be aware that neither are a bottomless pit.
Changes need to be made occasionally. Let's move on from the victim mentality and be thankful that we live in a country that provides us with all types of support. Nothing is going to match being employed full time but I've found that my needs have changed quite a bit since "retiring" and my expenses have reduced significantly. Life is not hard, it's just different and it does take a little while to adjust.
PeeBee is right.

PeeJay

18/9/2019 11:48:13 am

Oops! That should be weekly budget, not fortnightly. No-one is that frugal, are they?

Sunny

18/9/2019 11:56:05 am

You are lucky to have an investment property, many have nothing. And many pay rent, more than half of my income goes to rent (yes investors like you), so yes you can be thankful that people pay rent, though many are living the equivalent to homeless. In the USA wages are so low that people working are sleeping in their cars, we do not want that to happen here do we? Life is hard and harder for some. You did not have to wait long for the pension but there are many in their 40's and 50's who cannot get work for various reasons. I think we have to also look at why there are so many people on the DSP getting a lot more money and this is rising, Newstart people need more money to even be able to afford to look for work, your petrol costs might be low but when you are driving long distances to seek work you can spend a lot more, not too mention the maintenance costs on your car, and not everyone is driving a new or fairly new car.

PeeJay

19/9/2019 07:54:52 am

Hello Sunny, I rented until I was 62 but fortunately had the sense at the age of 52 to realise that I needed to do something more permanent for my retirement. It was called an investment property because I wasn't going to live in it at the time. It was only $70K and I often think that many could have afforded that as well but it's a state of mind, isn't it? It was not a brand new sparkling house, so probably deemed as not attractive enough for some. I would not describe myself as an investor. I was buying a house to either upgrade from or live in when I retired.

I spent a lot more on petrol while fulfilling my Newstart commitments because the volunteer hours required were not available in Wonthaggi. Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long until I reached pension age but in the meantime I used the savings I had, which is what it is all about. We should not presume that governments owe us a living, unless one is a public servant, of course.

No luck involved in my outcome, I worked for it and planned for it.
This is not America, so no comparison. My car is twenty years old and I pay more to insure than its "agreed value".

Yes, there are some hard luck stories out there but it's not because of the Newstart Allowance.

PeeBee

19/9/2019 11:04:57 am

PeeJay, I am staggered at the number of people who do not save for a rainy day. This may be in part because they are financially educated by people who make money out of them. They are bombarded by advertising telling them to spend by sports betting, banks or anyone who has something to sell. It is good that you share your story to show what people what can happen and how to cope.

Philby

19/9/2019 08:51:37 am

Ian I have looked at your figures and I have to question your rates of almost $4000 per year, how much is your property actually worth? I run 2 phones with a total of 100 gb in data for $20/ week, I insure house and contents ,1 car,1 motorhome for under $2000/year .
Stacking shelves in supermarkets is work that seems to be always available and I am sure it pays well above the new start.. Did you not save anything after 26 years in well paid work or have you invested it all in a new house and land? I agree with others newstart is not and should not be a replacement income instead of paid work. There are plenty of jobs out there.

Catherine Watson

19/9/2019 09:10:16 am

Re stacking supermarket shelves, this is one of the most sought after jobs there is! Perhaps because there are so many people out there who would rather deal with boxes of cereal than people. I've applied for a couple of these jobs and never even got a reply. I note that shelf stacking is done by kids after school at my local IGA. People who are not looking for work tend to assume the world is full of jobs for the taking. It isn't so.

PeeBee

19/9/2019 11:09:51 am

Catherine, we have hundreds of thousands of overseas people working in Australia. A cruise through Delmore during asparagus picking season shows hundreds of Vanuatuns doing the work. The caravan park at Hillston is full of backpackers working to extend their visa (and earning over $20 per hour). These are backbreaking jobs (I know as my life started as an agricultural labourer), but the jobs are there and being done by people will to do them.

Philby

19/9/2019 12:28:27 pm

Catherine I know of two people who very recently left their self employment. After a short intended break they both obtained work in the area I suggested. There is work available and sometimes all it takes is a positive attitude.

Sunny

19/9/2019 01:53:57 pm

Philby can you tell me which Telco you are with to get such a great deal on your phones? I only get 1 gb for $10 every 28 days.

Philby

19/9/2019 07:00:21 pm

Hi Sunny , Optus ran a special a few months ago sim only $40 month with bonus 50 GB. I am unsure of what the current offer is. Check Canstar as I understand Woolworths are offering a pretty good deal similar.

Sunny

19/9/2019 07:18:33 pm

Thanks for that Philby, will keep an eye out. $40 a month is too much for me.

Hard times

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