INDUSTRY & RESEARCH
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over your head, to be able to ensure you
can afford nutritious food. Not having
enough money to lead some sort of
life and, particularly for children, some
sort of “normal life”. I say that in inverted
commas because the stress of not having
or being able to do those kinds of things
is very bad for our mental wellbeing.
But it’s also bad for our physical health.
That ongoing accumulated stress can
increase our risk of heart disease as well.
There’s a lot of evidence that’s been built
up over the past number of decades
that shows us that stress matters.
And that relates to the sense of not
having control over our life; so, people
who are now having to queue to get
social welfare – we haven’t quite seen
the queues in terms of emergency food
relief that we see in the US, but that may
not be a million miles away for us.
This actually takes away our control
over our everyday life. We just don’t know
where we’re going to get the money
from. We just don’t know where we’re
going to get the food from. We just don’t
know. Are we ever going to be able to
live in the way we knew and loved?
What can be done at a local, state
and federal level to help our most
vulnerable through this? I know that
you are a supporter of extending the
JobSeeker payment at its current level,
which is more than what it used to be.
What other things can be done?
recently lose their jobs in a very
dramatic and unexpected way.
Yes, we have the people who were
catapulted into poverty. People who
just weren’t expecting to be in that
situation. Individuals who might’ve been
accumulating debt and, because they
thought that they had jobs, thought
they’d be able to keep continuing to
pay it off. Now they find themselves in
the situation where that’s not the case.
I think it’s really very concerning.
People in poverty experience a host of
negative consequences, particularly in their
physical and mental health. What are your
main concerns as this pandemic continues?
Poverty and disadvantage affect our
health in a load of different ways. Not
having enough money, for example, to
be able to make sure you’ve got a roof
The sorts of interventions that we’ve seen
coming from all levels of government
have to be applauded. You mentioned
the intervention around the JobSeeker
payment. And then, of course, this historic
JobKeeper payment. That’s fantastic.
That will not only help people get back
into work but back into spending, so
that’s incredibly good for the economy.
But that will just keep people well for
now. It will prevent these sorts of health
outcomes I’ve been speaking about. So,
incredible interventions, but they can’t be
a one-off. If we learn nothing else from
COVID-19 and all of the responses to it,
it’s that the economy and health are so
intrinsically connected that doing the right
thing for the economy is also incredibly
good for both social and health outcomes.
Other sorts of supports that can be
done and which we’ve seen is the Youth
Alliance. Fantastic. And the interventions
around housing and support for tenants.
Making sure that people aren’t on the
streets if they can’t afford to pay their rent.
There has been some criticism around the
housing relief packages, however. Many
are saying that it’s been left too much to
the landlord and the tenants to negotiate
and some power structures exist there.
Exactly, and that’s such an important
point. Let’s have a clear framework from
government that guides people on how
that should be done, because it’s just been
left to people’s own devices. But get a
clear framework in place and this sort of
intervention would be really helpful for
people who are socially disadvantaged.
Just going back to the poverty line idea,
housing is incredibly expensive. Fifty per
cent of the median household disposable
income would be just over $400 a week
for a single adult living alone. For two
adults with two children, it’s roughly $900
a week. And if you think of everything that
you have to pay for – including housing
– that’s not a lot of money. So, it creates
Doing the right thing
for the economy is also
incredibly good for both social
and health outcomes.
a real financial stress for a lot of people.
So, I suppose what you’re starting
to see in our conversation is that [we
need to be] thinking about social
protection policy and about housing
policy. The other thing to think about
is the nature of jobs in the country.
So, before COVID-19 even became
a problem, Australia, like many other
OECD countries, had this incredible
sort of precarious employment. Some
people don’t even have a contract. They
don’t know if they’ve got a shift or not.
And that really suits a lot of people, of
course, but for people who are financially
stressed, that’s not a good thing.
The nature of our work matters for our
health, particularly our mental health. And
if we’ve got poor-quality jobs – low-paying
jobs with little social protections around
them – which then make people sick
and they’re not able to work, which also
means they’re not able to contribute to
the economy in that sense, that costs us
as a society financially and otherwise. ■
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