This submission looks at the inadequacy of allowance payments compared with pension payments, as well as living standards, work incentives, employment services and future reform. Recommendations for the 2013 Budget and for future reform are made.

ACOSS' Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee regarding the Social Security Amendment (Fair Incentives to Work) Bill (2012). This submission mainly addresses Schedule 1, as we recommend that Schedule 2 (liquid assets test) be passed. ACOSS was also a signatory to a request for the Standing Committee on Human Rights to review the Bill’s...

The Australian Council of Social Service annual conference is a major event for social services and the community sector. Papers from the conference examine our country from the perspective of low income Australians. The ACOSS Annual Conference is a premier national event for policy-makers, researchers and those engaged in social services or advocacy. This year's...

The Government aims to restore the Federal Budget to surplus in 2012-13. ACOSS and other advocates for people facing poverty and social disadvantage aim to repair gaping holes in our social safety net. Higher social security payments and better employment services are needed to lift unemployed people and sole parents out of poverty; a National...

This report presents findings from a new study conducted by Saunders and Wong from the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), that measured material deprivation in Australia by asking a random sample of Australian adults in 2010 what goods and services they regarded as essential (for example, a ‘decent and secure home’), whether they had those...