“CPSA supports the Private Members’ Bill introduced by Cathy McGowan to establish a social security commission”, said CPSA Policy Coordinator, Paul Versteege.
“This commission would guide the parliament on the rates of income support payments, helping to ensure that payments are adequate and that indexation settings are right.
“CPSA’s primary interest in this are four social security payments: the Age Pension, the Disability Support Pension (DSP), Carer Payment and Newstart. While the Age Pension is the most obvious one, a lot of people are effectively low-income retirees on DSP, Carer Payment and the immorally inadequate Newstart payment.
“An independent Social Security Commission should be created and tasked to assess whether social welfare payments are enough to meet people’s basic needs.”
