Now 31, Tara, who asked for her surname not to be revealed, is back on Newstart to help her get through the process of a court case against her long-time childhood abuser. 

As a teenager she struggled to afford food on the unemployment support payment. 

Now Tara says she is lucky to have a strong network of friends for support who have helped make up the shortfalls of Newstart. 

“What people don’t realise is that when you live in poverty and disadvantage you kind of live in a separate society to everybody else. You are incredibly stigmatised and it is almost like you have a different world you live in that is quite different to working class or middle class people,” she says. 

Welfare agency staff say the Newstart Allowance is not a sufficient safety net for people in time of need.

Salvation Army Ballarat is leading a campaign to raise the rate of the income support allowance for the unemployed.

More than 100 people in Ballarat have already shown their support by signing a petition which will add to Salvation Army’s national campaign.

Salvation Army Ballarat team leader John Clonan says Newstart is an insufficient support for people to live on and be looking for work.

“Most people are living on around $17 a day after paying accommodation on Newstart. That is really tough,” he said.  

Most single people without children on Newstart receive $273 per week, or $39 per day.

Buying the basics like housing, food, transport, health, energy, and clothing costs a single person a minimum of $433 per week, according to University of New South Wales research.

The Australian Council of Social Service says Newstart has not increased in real terms in 24 years, but the cost of essentials has drastically increased.

MEET DAVE WHITE 

Dave White has been applying for around 15 jobs a month since becoming unemployed two years ago. 

The 47-year-old has previously had a steady stream of work in Ballarat, but has struggled to get back into the workforce since being let go from a job when the business changed hands. 

Since, he has been battling ageism, casualisation of the workforce, the cost of public transport to Melbourne and managing to live on the Newstart Allowance. 

Mr White has experience and skills in hospitality, customer service, the entertainment industry and factories. 

After constant knock backs, he began noticing his age as the main barrier to employment. 

“When you are getting knock backs for roles that are unskilled, night fill positions and things like that you are wondering what is happening here,” he says. 

“I am finding employers tend to employ someone they can pay less.”

Wage subsidies are available to employers who hire workers 50-years-of-age and older. 

Subsidies up to $6,500 are also available to employers who hire the long term unemployed. 

But Mr White says the incentives are not enough. 

“I have got skills and I apply for heaps of work... I am not afraid to reinvent myself and push myself to learn something new if it is going to get me through the front door somewhere,” he says. 

“It is cheaper for employers to hire someone of a younger age. Unfortunately that is the society which we live in.

“If I don’t gain employment between now and the end of the year I will be going to learn something new next year which will hopefully get me more job skills to be employed in something new.”

Mr White is reluctant to complain, as he knows he is better off than some, but it is clear his living situation is uncomfortable. 

It costs him $210 a fortnight to live in a one bedroom share house where he is sleeping on a couch. 

“I couldn’t afford the rents in Ballarat let alone trying to find something for yourself and then having to worry about paying full price for utilities,” Mr White says. 

“You have to change your lifestyle to what you need to do rather than what you want to do because the funds just don’t stretch that far.”

More than 6,300 people in Ballarat were on the Newstart Allowance in 2016, according to latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

ABS data shows there is only one job available for every eight people looking for paid work or more hours.

That is why 70 per cent of people receiving Newstart have been unemployed for 12 months or more.

MEET JONATHAN HAMILTON

Ballarat resident Jonathan Hamilton is saving as much as his Newstart Allowance as he can to buy a car. 

Without one, he can’t apply for jobs that meet his skill set. 

Mr Hamilton has worked in abattoirs and in smallgoods as a slaughterman for most of his working life. 

With most meat facilities on the outskirts or well out of towns, getting to work has always involved at least an hour long journey. 

Mr Hamilton became unemployed two and a half years ago after the employer he was working for died. 

Soon after, problems with his car meant he had to start saving for another. 

Buying a car has now become his number one priority, with a desire to move to Mildura to be closer to his kids and apply for a job at an abattoir set to open there next year. 

“I keep trying to save up money but every time you get a bit of money saved up something happens at home. I just had to get a new fridge too. It all adds up,” he says. 

There’s not much left to save with only $320 coming into his bank account each fortnight after rent is paid. He has been sourcing food from emergency relief services and meals programs to help offset some costs. 

“It would be easier to get back into the workforce if the rate of Newstart was raised,” Mr Hamilton says. 

“I can only apply for jobs I can get to around town. Even then public transport is unreliable.

“I had a job interview for a furniture removalist but when I was going there I was waiting at the bus stop early and that bus didn’t come. I had to wait until the next bus came and by the time I got there I was 45 minutes late for my job interview. I still did my interview but there was no way I was getting it because I wasn’t there on time.”

Mr Hamilton says he is speaking to his job agency about getting a white card to apply for different labouring jobs. 

“I have no other qualifications because I have always worked with meat. I can get to an abattoir because I don’t have a car,” he says. 

Just more than one per cent of people were considered long term unemployed in Victoria in the 12 months to August 2018, according to ABS data. 

Long term unemployment is considered unemployment for a consecutive 52 weeks or longer. 

Mr Clonan says sustaining the momentum to find employment was challenging if supports were not in place.

“Helping people on Newstart is certainly more complex than saying ‘just get a job’,” he says.

“Imagine yourself being put on $17 a day after paying accommodation. It is really stressful.”

More than half of people on Newstart Allowance live below the poverty line.

Salvation Army statistics reveal 33 per cent of clients presenting to the service for assistance since July 2016 were on Newstart. 

30 per cent of clients were on disability support, 24 per cent on parenting payments and five per cent on the youth allowance and aged pension. Statistics show a consistent level of clients presenting who are experiencing long term unemployment. 

MEET TARA 

“I don’t know if my story is common. In many ways it is. Young women particularly in poverty and disadvantage are more likely to suffer trauma, abuse and self harm,” Tara says. 

At 16, homeless and living on Newstart, Tara continued trying to go to school while staying with an exploitative man. 

“I had nowhere to go except for this violent man who was exploiting me and feeding me drugs, and he had been since I was 13,” she says.

“It is hard to get a job in that situation when you are living a very tumultuous life, sleeping on people’s couches, experiencing abuse on a daily basis.

“I had grown up in poverty and disadvantage. Everyone around me was on some Centrelink benefit of some sort.”

Tara, now 31, has completed an undergraduate degree in human services and is in the process of completing an honours degree in social science. 

She recently started back on the Newstart Allowance again while going through the process of preparing and presenting a victim impact statement at court in a case against her long-time childhood abuser. 

“The court trial has caused me so much re-traumatisation... things like nightmares, sleep paralysis, post traumatic stress, extreme anxiety and crushing depression,” Tara says. 

“I am lucky now I have a good network of friends around me who were able to lend me money until I could get back on my feet. 

“When I was younger I didn’t have that, so my experience of Newstart is quite different when I was younger. When I was a teenager I would get multiple fines for not having a ticket on the train and it was a struggle to get food and eat it.” 

Earlier this year Tara was working to complete her honours degree while working at a restaurant in Ballarat.

But she says the employers were taking advantage of her ‘dodgy resume’ detailing irregular employment caused by trauma, homelessness and frequently moving towns to care for sick family members.  

“They were paying me $14 an hour and I wasn’t being paid for petrol to do deliveries in my own car,” Tara says. 

“It is the first car I have ever owned I bought using a scholarship I was given by Federation University.”

Now the court case is complete, Tara is hoping to get a job in her industry. She has connections with a youth service in Melbourne. 

“To get back into the workforce when you have been out of it for so long is really hard because you have been so stigmatised and isolated,” she says.

“People ask you what you have been doing and where you have come from, you can’t just say I have come from struggling with post traumatic stress because I have been in court to deal with this guy who abused me from 12 to 20… 

“There is a real separation of worlds between people in poverty and disadvantage and people in the workforce.”

Tara agrees the Newstart Allowance needs to be raised urgently, with an increasing number of people struggling to maintain housing. 

“I am really lucky I had some friends already living in Ballarat I was able to get a house with when I moved there. But my house is going under auction this Saturday, so we might be forced out anyway. I know it is already hard to get a rental and when you are not making much money and the rent is increasing they are not going to rent to you over other people,” she says. 

But almost just as important is the need to change attitudes toward people on unemployment benefits, Tara says. 

“No one chooses this life. Nobody willingly wants to live on next to nothing. You can’t do anything. It is not like you are enjoying the fruits of life,” she says.

“You can’t go to restaurants, watch cable tv, go on holidays. People on Newstart are just existing and often skipping meals.

“Stigma contributes to the fragmentation of our society and separates people in poverty and disadvantage from institutions such as justice, health and the workplace. That stigma increases mental health issues.

“We need our community to be more encouraging and more understanding of people’s experiences of why they are unemployed and why they end up in poverty. If we did so people might find it easier to get a job.”

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