Break the Poverty Machine: the voices of Australia’s poor (part 1)

Marina Chapman is a JobSeeker recipient from Tasmania. She authored the below open letter to social security minister Amanda Rishworth as part of the Break the Poverty Machine week of action, which will be held to mark the International Day to Eradicate Poverty on 17 October – one week ahead of the federal budget. People on low incomes and supporters can get more information and register to participate in the #BTPM protest (either online or in person in Adelaide) here: btpm2022.eventbrite.com.au

Minister Rishworth,

I, and many other welfare recipients need you to understand the urgency of our situation while living on an income well below the poverty line in Australia. We need you to read our stories, hear them, and most important of all - Raise all welfare rates ABOVE the poverty line.

My name is Marina. I'm a forty-seven year old woman, wife, and mother from Tasmania, who relies on the paltry JobSeeker payment to get by. We struggle to put good food on the table, pay our bills, maintain our house and garden to safe standards, and struggle to get our medical needs met - all because we exist in financial poverty.

I've struggled all my life to maintain a job, due to a combination of life-long mental & physical health conditions. These conditions are largely due to my traumatic childhood, traumatic life events in adulthood & the complexities of my ADHD that went undiagnosed until late last year.

I shouldn't need to explain to you how difficult it is to manage in life when you can't afford to access specialist medical care or diagnoses due to poverty. I've suffered for decades and contemplated suicide many times. Fortunately for my husband & children I've never attempted suicide. However, I have gone so far as to plan my death & purchase the means. Imagine, if you will, the pain & panic of discovering your loved one has the means to kill themselves & they won't tell you where it is hidden. That was my husband a few short years ago, trying desperately to convince me to stay alive.

The suffering of poverty extends beyond the individual, like ripples in water when a rock is thrown in. Families & communities suffer too.

When poverty is a major contributor, (if not the cause) of such suffering, and you have the power to reduce it significantly with the stroke of a pen - then it is up to you, as a government elected by the people of Australia, to look out for the most vulnerable of all Australians. A society is only as strong as it's weakest, most vulnerable member. And by that measure, Australia is very weak.

Raise all welfare rates ABOVE the poverty line.

End punitive "mutual" obligations.

Close down the job service network & bring an end to the businesses of those poverty police.

Break the Poverty Machine!
Marina.
Hobart, TAS

ID: A group of protestors, including two in wheelchairs, hold anti-poverty signs and placards