2GB host Ben Fordham has unloaded on “dole bludgers” after this week’s increases to welfare payments in the federal budget, angrily telling one unemployed Melburnian to “get a job”.
Speaking to The Australian earlier this week, graphic designer Jez Heywood, 47, said he was “angry” about the $20-a-week increase to Jobseeker.
Mr Heywood, who has been unemployed since 2017 and has limited job options due to health conditions, told the newspaper the extra $2.85 a day was so small as to make no difference to the “absolutely atrocious” rate of $693.10 a fortnight.
“I’m angry, annoyed — this is nothing, absolutely nothing,” Mr Heywood told The Australian.
“The government commissioned a study that said significant increases were needed and they’ve ignored it.”
The government had been under pressure to increase the Jobseeker payment from its current rate of $49.50 a day to around $1000 a fortnight, or about $68 a day — 90 per cent of the Age Pension — as recommended by the Department of Social Services’ Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.
The government said the $24 billio...
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