Saturday October 27th, 9:00am – 4:30pm
West End Uniting Church – 11 Sussex St, Highgate Hill QLD 4101
Sunday October 28th, 10:00am – 2:30pm
Common House – 74b Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley QLD 4006
Free Entry
Register here: tinyurl.com/ybk4gvh8
Program:https://drive.google.com/file/d/117D_z1OMgmodjAKpFnVyytoXSrdb3e_1/view
For over two decades, our welfare system has been continually dismantled and devastated by the government. We’re treated like criminals and demonised by the media just for accessing the welfare payments we’re entitled to. We’re exploited through work for the dole, punished and restricted through the cashless welfare card and compete with each other in a job system that hasn’t got enough work – all for a social security wage that’s $400 below the poverty line every fortnight.
To make things worse, government departments are slashed and sold off to the highest bidder, allowing mental health to skyrocket and shooting up the cost of living. Public housing is ignored and investors are allowed to reign supreme, creating homelessness and ensuring the poorest are locked out of a place to live. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are punished and locked into poverty through the intervention. The NDIS is a failed system, workplace rights are falling apart, and the elderly and disabled are chastised just for existing.
The government wants us to feel shame and disgrace for being in poverty, for being poor. We refuse. We can’t trust the government to give us the respect, dignity and rights we deserve – we have to take it from them.
Join us on October the 27th & 28th for two days of conversation, stories, strategy and action. We’ll be discussing the punitive system deliberately making life as hard as possible for those out of work and living in poverty, and how we can struggle for justice and respect. We’ll be hearing from people on welfare and in poverty; voices ignored for far too long. We’ll also be hearing from organisers, activists, academics and economists – all fighting back across different areas of Australian society.
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Anti-Poverty Network QLD is a grassroots community organisation, working as support network for people in poverty and on welfare – run by people in poverty and on welfare.
0477 495 652
https://soundcloud.com/ian-curr/sets/marissa-dooris-on-prisons-poverty