In late March, the Senate will be debating the Coalition’s bill propsing to give job agencies unprecedented powers to fine unemployed workers.
After protesting against this bill outside Senators offices, the Australian Unemployed Workers Union is now encouraging its members to call their local Senators and voice their opposition to this cruel and punitive bill.
With many independents yet to make up their minds and Labor clearly unaware of the dangers of this bill, we feel this phone banking campaign could stop this bill in its tracks. We encourage our members to make calling independents a priority, then call Labor party members secondly.
At a bare minimum, we must let them know we are watching their vote and will hold them accountable!
Choose a local senator from the below list – every Senator except Liberals (who have pledged to vote for) and the Greens (who have pledged to vote against) – and start fighting this fine!
—— VICTORIA ——
Ricky Muir (Motor Enthusiast Party): (03) 5144 3639 / 1300 965 848 (toll free)
John Madigan (Independent): (03) 5331 2321
Kim Carr (Labor): (03) 9639 2798
Jacinta Collins (Labor): (03) 9890 7022
Stephen Conroy (Labor): (03) 9391 4952 / 1300 131 546 (toll free)
Gavin Marshall (Labor): (03) 9348 9699
—— NEW SOUTH WALES ——
David Leyonhjelm (Liberal Democratic Party): (02) 9719 1078 / 1300 884 092 (toll free)
Doug Cameron (Labor, responsible for party speeches on this bill): (02) 4751 4288 / 1300 226 005 (toll free)
Sam Dastyari (Labor): (02) 9326 5987 / 1300 880 904 (toll free)
Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (Labor): (02) 4226 1700 / 1300 735 268 (toll free)
Jenny McAllister (Labor): (02) 9719 8100 / 1300 301 752 (toll free)
Deboray O’Neill (Labor): (02) 4367 4565
Fiona Nash (Nationals): (02) 6382 3400
John Williams (Nationals): (02) 6721 4500 / 1300 301 816 (toll free)
—— QUEENSLAND ——
Glenn Lazarus (Independent): (07) 3001 8940
Chris Ketter (Labor): (07) 3881 3710 / 1300 884 489 (toll free)
Joeseph Ludwig (Labor): (07) 3229 4477 / 1300 301 944 (toll free)
Jan McLucas (Labor): (07) 4031 6009 / 1300 301 959 (toll free)
Claire Moore (Labor): (07) 3252 7101 / 1300 301 879 (toll free)
Matthew Canavan (Nationals): (07) 4927 2003 / 1300 301 887 (toll free)
Barry O’Sullivan (Nationals): (07) 4638 7555
—— SOUTH AUSTRALIA ——
Bob Day (Family First): (08) 8331 0151 / 1300 554 166 (toll free)
Nick Xenophon (Independent): (08) 8232 1144 / 1300 556 115 (toll free)
Alex Gallagher (Labor): (08) 8269 6022
Anne McEwen (Labor): (08) 8352 7477 / 1300 889 477 (toll free)
Penny Wong (Labor): (08) 8212 8272 / 1300 301 698 (toll free)
—— WESTERN AUSTRALIA ——
Zhenya Wang (Palmer United Party): (08) 9486 9650
Joe Bullock (Labor): (08) 9260 5090 / 1300 301 726 (toll free)
Sue Lines (Labor): (08) 9481 4844 / 1300 655 388 (toll free)
Glenn Sterle (Labor): (08) 9455 1420 / 1300 666 494 (toll free)
—— TASMANIA ——
Jacqui Lambie (Independent): (03) 6431 2233
Catryna Bilyk (Labor): (03) 6229 4444 / 1300 855 225 (toll free)
Carol Brown (Labor): (03) 6231 0099 / 1300 301 532 (toll free)
Helen Polley (Labor): (03) 6331 2599 / 1300 134 923 (toll free)
Lisa Singh (Labor): (03) 6223 1135
Anne Urquhart (Labor): (03) 6423 1933 / 1300 792 331 (toll free)
—— ACT ——
Katy Gallagher (Labor): (02) 6230 0411
—— Northern Territory ——
Nova Peris (Labor): (08) 8941 0003
Nigel Scullion (Country Liberal): (08) 8948 3555
——— BILL INFORMATION ———–
Under this bill, unemployed workers can be fined 10% of their Newstart entitlement (increasing by 10% each day until they ‘reengage’) if they:
– fail to sign a job plan at first appointment
– are found by the job agency to have behaved ‘innapropriately’ at an appointment (“innapropriate behaviour” is vauguely defined as acting in a manner “such that the purpose of the appointment is not achieved”.)
– fail to attend Work for the Dole or Training exercise without an excuse deemed reasonsable by the job agency
Fines will be deducted immidately. Due to the slow and arduous Centrelink appeals process, wrongly accused unemployed workers will have to wait months before they can get their money back.
We have seen a number of our members being fined unfairly and being forced to wait 3-4 months as they chase this money that was incorrectly taken from them.
With the Newstart Allowance is already $380 below the poverty line per fortnight, how are fined unemployed workers meant to survive?
The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union strongly condems the Coalition’s cruel and punitive approach to the unemployed.
By giving the dysfunctional employment services industry the power to financially penalise the 750,000+ unemployed Australians, this bill will only push Australia’s most disadvantaged deeper in poverty, and ultimately, away from employment.
Please join our ‘Fight the Fine’ Phone Bank and help protect the rights and dignity of unemployed workers!
——— EMAILS ———
Additionally, you can urge the Senators to oposse this punitive bill by email. The emails of all Senators are follows (feel free to copy all emails and email them all at once!):
senator.abetz@aph.gov.au, senator.back@aph.gov.au, senator.bilyk@aph.gov.au, senator.birmingham@aph.gov.au, senator.brandis@aph.gov.au, senator.carol.brown@aph.gov.au, senator.bullock@aph.gov.au, senator.bushby@aph.gov.au, senator.cameron@aph.gov.au, senator.canavan@aph.gov.au, senator.carr@aph.gov.au, senator.cash@aph.gov.au, senator.colbeck@aph.gov.au, senator.collins@aph.gov.au, senator.conroy@aph.gov.au, senator.cormann@aph.gov.au, senator.dastyari@aph.gov.au, senator.day@aph.gov.au, senator.dinatale@aph.gov.au, senator.edwards@aph.gov.au, senator.fawcett@aph.gov.au, senator.fierravanti-wells@aph.gov.au, senator.fifield@aph.gov.au, senator.gallacher@aph.gov.au, senator.hanson-young@aph.gov.au, senator.heffernan@aph.gov.au, senator.johnston@aph.gov.au, senator.ketter@aph.gov.au, senator.lambie@aph.gov.au, senator.lazarus@aph.gov.au, senator.lines@aph.gov.au, senator.ludwig@aph.gov.au, senator.ludlam@aph.gov.au, senator.lundy@aph.gov.au, senator.ian.macdonald@aph.gov.au, senator.ian.macdonald@aph.gov.au, senator.madigan@aph.gov.au, senator.marshall@aph.gov.au, senator.mason@aph.gov.au, senator.mcewen@aph.gov.au, senator.mcgrath@aph.gov.au, senator.milne@aph.gov.au, senator.moore@aph.gov.au, senator.muir@aph.gov.au, senator.nash@aph.gov.au, senator.oneill@aph.gov.au, senator.o’sullivan@aph.gov.au, senator.parry@aph.gov.au, senator.payne@aph.gov.au, senator.peris@aph.gov.au, senator.polley@aph.gov.au, senator.reynolds@aph.gov.au, senator.rhiannon@aph.gov.au, senator.rice@aph.gov.au, senator.ronaldson@aph.gov.au, senator.ruston@aph.gov.au, senator.ryan@aph.gov.au, senator.scullion@aph.gov.au, senator.seselja@aph.gov.au, senator.siewert@aph.gov.au, senator.singh@aph.gov.au senator.sinodinos@aph.gov.au, senator.smith@aph.gov.au, senator.sterle@aph.gov.au, senator.urquhart@aph.gov.au, senator.wang@aph.gov.au, senator.waters@aph.gov.aut, senator.whish-wilson@aph.gov.au, senator.williams@aph.gov.au,, senator.wong@aph.gov.au, senator.wright@aph.gov.au, senator.xenophon@aph.gov.au
Hi I have sent to all the above and hope to see an answer from at least some of them. I will post my email and responses to the facebook once I am on a computer that allows me access to fb.
Thank you for doing this I love the opportunity to tell these people what I really think.
Regards,
Christine
I plan to call up, it is just that I am always not home to do it.
Again, we find cuts and we are told over and over we can’t afford this and that. The question that the main stream media never bring up is that there are two sides to every coin. Who is this debt owed too? These folks who own the debt get paid interest on the debt that otherwise would of been taxed and they would of lost it entirely.
Why are the taxes always cut and the promise of more jobs never materializes? The same thing over and over. They still tell us to cut the taxes more on the richest and biggest corporations and richest people in the world and yet there are not more jobs?
The definition of insanity is doing the same over and over and expecting a different outcome.