It’s been a little over ten years since mining magnate Gina Rinehart suggested that workers are being grossly overpaid, approvingly citing the example of workers in Africa who were ‘willing to work for less than $2 per day’. Such a dire situation (the alleged overpayment, not the unconscionable underpayment) was, according to the mining magnate, evidence ‘that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business’. As a result of these comments, Rinehart was singled out for what many would consider to be appropriate excoriation. The truth of the matter is, however, she was simply saying what others of her class were thinking.
Jobseeker payments have just been indexed for inflation and increased this week by $24.70 a fortnight, or the princely sum of $1.77 a day, taking it from $47.75 to $49.50 a day. This is still 57 per cent below minimum wage and 34 per cent below the age pension.
One can hardly talk about it as an increase since it is merely a way of acknowledging the decrease, in real terms, in the value of this and other income support payments in the face of a period of severe inflation due to a cost-of-profits crisis.
We do an enormous disservice to the people who are forced to wage a daily battle from below the poverty line when we frame this as an issue that is somehow separate from everything else happening in society, including its economic base.
In the kind of world yearned for by many of those controlling the biggest chunks of capital, giving them permission under the current socio-economic formation to exploit labour, even the lowest paid workers would be paid less than they currently are. And what better way to incentivise workers to accept unconscionably low wages than by making sure the alternative — having to live on unemployment payments — is even worse! According to this line of thinking, income support payments, if they are to exist at all, should be so low that the recipients will be fighting each other for jobs that offer even the most execrable working conditions and below-poverty-line wages.
It is no accident that the neoliberal period of capitalism saw both the systematic dismantling of essential social infrastructure (including social security) and the strategic undermining of the capacity for working people to collectively organise and bargain for decent pay and conditions. Where has this gotten us? A place where multinational corporations are encouraged to avoid taxes; a place where precarious work has been normalised, effectively rendering the minimum wage and minimum working conditions (such as sick leave) meaningless for many, and where the social security system parks people in a state of permanent social insecurity; a place where the labour market no longer opens the door, especially for younger workers, to the housing market.
'If we want to prevent poverty we need a more equitable distribution of income, especially for those who are on income support payments or low or insecure wages and the building and buttressing of a safe, democratic and respectful socio-economic space. It means creating the kind of society where housing is a right enjoyed by all, not a speculative sport for some and a lottery for others.'
For decades, we have seen the emergence of a troubling consensus on the acceptance of the falsehood that people who are living in poverty, more than anything else, need ‘tough love’ paternalism. And for decades this dominant policy frame has not only failed to reduce poverty and inequality but has made life harder for the people it was purportedly designed to help.
Poverty is, above all else, a power relation. Typified by income inadequacy and housing deprivation, it is a means of deliberate disempowerment, a structural and historical violence done to people, not an individual state passively or accidentally experienced by people. Nor is poverty a choice by those who are forced to experience it, as per former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s argument that poverty in Britain was ‘not material but behavioural’.
Poverty is a choice, a political choice though, not a personal one. And poverty is material. But it is also more. That it is primarily a power relation is evidenced in the poverty experienced on the basis of gendered violence, unequal (or absent) bargaining power, colonisation, ableism, queerphobia, ageism and exclusion from secure work, adequate income security, or housing. It is also evidenced by the shame and humiliation that is often carefully manufactured and imposed.
In 2004, the Senate Community Affairs References Committee tabled its Report on poverty and financial hardship. The report contained valuable insights and some excellent recommendations, including an increase to the base rates of allowances, the guaranteeing of standard entitlements, such as annual leave and sick leave, for labour hire workers, and a new minimum wage benchmark.
The evidence given to that inquiry 20 years ago is unsurprisingly familiar. Much of it, such as the following testimony by Margaret Clarke, from Byron Bay, may well have been given in 2023 rather than 2003:
‘Like millions of other low-income Australians, I am one of the hidden poor, just keeping afloat. We are flat-out treading water here. We are making very little headway towards our aspirations, and we are one crisis or catastrophe away from the poor box. We are living on the edge.
‘We live in the shadow of the dismal statistics. We are not mad, bad, sad or totally dysfunctionally overwhelmed by life circumstances. Many of us are highly skilled and well educated. We are all doing what we can to contribute to society with the resources we have. Our poverty is poverty of resources, services and opportunities … it is getting too hard to make ends meet, let alone work towards our dreams.’
A rising tide may well lift all boats, but if you have no boat, you’re lucky to be ‘flat-out treading water’, always on the verge of, if not actually, drowning. As things stand, a tiny minority of us have luxury yachts, while many are lucky to have a lifejacket or the most rudimentary of watercraft.
We are accustomed, at worst, to painting those who are barely treading water as the problem. At best, we acknowledge the roughness of the sea, the wild fluctuations of the global economy, resulting, for example, in high unemployment followed by periods of steep inflation.
It is certainly important to stabilise economic conditions. But the crux of the issue is twofold: the allocation of ‘boats’ and the construction of a ‘safe harbour’.
If we want to prevent poverty we need both: a more equitable distribution of income, especially for those who are on income support payments or low or insecure wages; and the building and buttressing of a safe, democratic and respectful socio-economic space.
It means creating the kind of society where housing is a right enjoyed by all, not a speculative sport for some and a lottery for others. It means ensuring that social security payments actually protect us from precarity rather than exposing us to it. This is the allocation element and, given the political will, can actually be achieved relatively quickly. Witness, for example, the speed with which even the Morrison government, albeit all too temporarily, implemented a life-changing increase to social security payments at the height of the pandemic.
The safe harbour element is more of a long-term project. But we need to start on it now! It is a reconfiguration of first principles. Equitable allocation of income and housing must, in order to be sustainable, be anchored in the safe harbour of a protected planet; a society that acknowledges, and responds to, the rich, ancient history of the First Nations, as well as the violent and ongoing social crime of colonisation. A safe harbour means shaping our economic activity to serve the needs of people rather than pandering to the greed of profiteers. It means socially useful work. It means healing. It means respect, reverence and celebration, as well as space for the work of mourning and the collective work for liberation, under the guiding stars of struggle and hope.
Dr John Falzon is Senior Fellow, Inequality and Social Justice at Per Capita. He was national CEO of the St Vincent de Paul Society from 2006 to 2018. He is a member of the Australian Services Union.
Main image: Silhouette of a man sitting with head nodded at bus stop terminal. (Ross Tomei / Getty Images)