Extract from The Guardian
I will keep editing to a minimum so that the rawness of their experience comes to you unpolished
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• Support our independent journalism with a monthly or one-off contribution
You would think that with almost 3 million Australians living in poverty it wouldn’t be too hard to find a handful of them to write about the day-to-day challenges of living on the breadline.
But gathering a clutch of people willing to reveal themselves in this way has been difficult. What has been the biggest obstacle? Finding those who feel able to overcome the shame and humiliation they experience on a regular basis, and feel brave enough to expose themselves to more of it.
Media and government policy has not always been kind to Australians on welfare. They are saddled with reductionist labels and treated punitively, stigmatised and marginalised, as though living in poverty is their fault and their choice. The government wants to infantilise them further by drug testing welfare recipients, managing their income and referring them to treatment if they fail.
Meanwhile, Newstart payments have not increased in real terms since 1994, and last week’s budget brought no joy. While some politicians asserted it was possible to live on $40 a day, economists, business leaders and even the former prime minister John Howard all agreed it is time to increase benefits.
Guardian Australia’s Life on the breadline project is designed to
give an unfiltered voice to the people behind the headlines. Rather than
experts and politicians and commentators talking about them, this platform is theirs alone. The only prerequisite is that they live below the poverty line,
defined by the Australian Council of Social Service as $343 a week for a
single person to live on after housing costs, and $720 a week for a
couple with children.
According to the latest Acoss poverty report, in 2014 there were 2.99 million Australians living below the poverty line after taking account of housing costs. Of those, 731,000 are children.
Over the coming months some of these people will share with you the most personal details of their day-to-day lives as they move through the world and come up hard against society’s judgments of them. They will open up their inner lives – their hopes and their dreams as well as the humiliations and deprivations – and hopefully challenge stereotypes and biases on the way.
I will keep editing to a minimum so that the rawness of their experience comes to you unpolished. Every two weeks we will publish a new writer until you have met the whole group, and then they will take turns to keep us up to date about their lives. With me, you will come to know their characters, to see complex and multi-faceted humans and not cardboard cutouts designed to dovetail with a particular world view.
I don’t know, yet, how their stories will unfold. It’s a frightening leap for an editor to launch a series like this without knowing what will happen in each of the stories we plan to publish. We all lead messy lives in an uncertain world; these writers have the added, onerous layer of a relentless and exhausting struggle to make ends meet.
I would like to think that I will have to write to you at some stage soon and say, I’m so sorry, but we’re bringing this project to an unexpectedly early close because Mick, Amethyst, Nijole and Tara are no longer living on the breadline. That their health has improved, that they have landed a great job, that the support they receive from their government now lifts them above that line – that they are no longer stricken by poverty. Let’s wish this for them.
But at this, the starting point, it’s all unknown. I hope you stay with me on this journey. It’s a privilege to introduce you to these brave and strong people.
• Support our independent journalism with a monthly or one-off contribution
But gathering a clutch of people willing to reveal themselves in this way has been difficult. What has been the biggest obstacle? Finding those who feel able to overcome the shame and humiliation they experience on a regular basis, and feel brave enough to expose themselves to more of it.
Media and government policy has not always been kind to Australians on welfare. They are saddled with reductionist labels and treated punitively, stigmatised and marginalised, as though living in poverty is their fault and their choice. The government wants to infantilise them further by drug testing welfare recipients, managing their income and referring them to treatment if they fail.
Meanwhile, Newstart payments have not increased in real terms since 1994, and last week’s budget brought no joy. While some politicians asserted it was possible to live on $40 a day, economists, business leaders and even the former prime minister John Howard all agreed it is time to increase benefits.
According to the latest Acoss poverty report, in 2014 there were 2.99 million Australians living below the poverty line after taking account of housing costs. Of those, 731,000 are children.
Over the coming months some of these people will share with you the most personal details of their day-to-day lives as they move through the world and come up hard against society’s judgments of them. They will open up their inner lives – their hopes and their dreams as well as the humiliations and deprivations – and hopefully challenge stereotypes and biases on the way.
I will keep editing to a minimum so that the rawness of their experience comes to you unpolished. Every two weeks we will publish a new writer until you have met the whole group, and then they will take turns to keep us up to date about their lives. With me, you will come to know their characters, to see complex and multi-faceted humans and not cardboard cutouts designed to dovetail with a particular world view.
I don’t know, yet, how their stories will unfold. It’s a frightening leap for an editor to launch a series like this without knowing what will happen in each of the stories we plan to publish. We all lead messy lives in an uncertain world; these writers have the added, onerous layer of a relentless and exhausting struggle to make ends meet.
I would like to think that I will have to write to you at some stage soon and say, I’m so sorry, but we’re bringing this project to an unexpectedly early close because Mick, Amethyst, Nijole and Tara are no longer living on the breadline. That their health has improved, that they have landed a great job, that the support they receive from their government now lifts them above that line – that they are no longer stricken by poverty. Let’s wish this for them.
But at this, the starting point, it’s all unknown. I hope you stay with me on this journey. It’s a privilege to introduce you to these brave and strong people.
• Support our independent journalism with a monthly or one-off contribution
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