Unemployed welfare reforms voted down in senate :}

How humiliating. All that bluster, all that insistence that it had to be done, only to have the whole thing cark it in the senate.

The bill has been defeated and the gov hasn't even said if it's going to reintroduce it sometime in the future. 

A controversial Bill that would have left the poorest unemployed Australians without welfare for eight weeks has been voted down by the Senate, throwing its future into doubt. 

In a victory for welfare advocates, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Stronger Penalties for Serious Failures) Bill 2014 today failed to pass the Parliament’s upper house, defeated by 35 votes to 29. 

The legislation, championed by the Coalition, would have punished job seekers who refused “suitable” work or missed three participation requirements over a six-month period. 

While sanctions for welfare recipients who refuse work already exist, the new laws would have removed ‘waivers’ introduced by Labor in 2009, which allow people to have payments reinstated if they take steps to rectify their errors, for example by attending counselling and job placement meetings they had previously missed. 

The legislation also sight to destroy a ‘financial hardship’ waiver, meaning those with less than $2,500 of liquid assets would also have welfare payments suspended for the eight-week period. more