Australian government reintroduces sweeping welfare cuts

The increasingly unstable Turnbull government this week suddenly unveiled an “omnibus bill,” seeking to push through parliament welfare cuts that have been stalled in the Senate since 2014 because of deep popular hostility to them.

Facing defections and rifts in his government, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is desperately seeking to demonstrate to the corporate elite that he can impose the cuts and other austerity measures that his ousted predecessor Tony Abbott failed to deliver.

The bill contains 16 separate provisions to slash welfare payments by a total of $7.5 billion over four years, with the most severe cuts targeted at young people, working-class families and aged pensioners. Over the past three years, the media has dubbed these measures “zombie” cuts—“stinking carcasses” of the 2014 budget that the Liberal-National government, then headed by Abbott, was unable to fully implement.

By resuscitating the “zombies,” Turnbull’s government is intensifying an assault on welfare entitlements. The poorest and most vulnerable members of society are being victimised. One of the central aims is to coerce thousands of jobless workers, students and parents with young children into low-paid and insecure jobs.

Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/02/11/welf-f11.html