I couldn’t afford food on jobseeker after bills and rent. Is this really what ‘no one left behind’ looks like? | Travis Gilbert

In 2022, when Anthony Albanese was making his pitch to voters to change the country by changing the government, I was briefly encouraged by one aspect of Labor’s platform.

Albanese pledged a new social contract for Australia, with “no one held back and no one left behind”.

Three years later, as I found myself receiving jobseeker for the first time in two decades and with just $45.95 a week left after paying my landlord, I suddenly realised I was feeling both held back, and a long way behind my employed peers.

I am not alone.

Foodbank’s report on food insecurity released on Monday has again brought the lived experience of poverty back into the spotlight.

There are up to 900,000 people in Australia asked to make ends meet on around $58 a day. That is a tough enough ask for those in social housing; in the private rental market, it is a cruel joke bestowed upon people who find themselves unemployed in the “lucky country”.

In the age of “conditional welfare” we are asked to attend fortnightly compliance appointments with publicly funded, privately owned job agencies, maintain an internet and phone connection to upload proof of compliance with their “approved activities” and get frequent texts about the consequences of not meeting their monthly “points target”.

With my $46 a week, I prioritised internet ($17.50), mobile phone ($5) and paying my electricity in advance ($24).

While grateful to live in a country with a “safety net”, it only covered these four expenses.

There was no money for contents insurance, food, GP visits, medication or public transport to and from the fortnightly appointments with my compliance officer (“employment consultant”). The payment would not even stretch to cover a bus fare – a problem in the age of conditional social security.

One of the compulsory activities I must attend or else earn demerit points (like a recalcitrant driver) and go from the “green zone” to the red zone (“wilful non-compliance” and $0), is a fortnightly face-to-face appointment 8km from my flat.

I walk a lot, but a 16km round trip to confirm I am no better off than I was a fortnight ago is beyond my level of fitness.

I was fortunate enough to gain temporary employment on a project which gave me a few thousand dollars to draw down on to buy food, pay to see a doctor, buy medication, and insure the contents of my flat. Others on jobseeker are not so lucky, and the lie that it is a temporary payment is borne out in the department’s own stats, that show half the people rely on it for more than two years.

For me, living in suburban Canberra, the jobseeker payment is about $120 a week below where it needs to be in order to afford food and things like medical appointments, medication and insurance.

Food pantries and charities become essential for those on jobseeker, especially if you want to avoid predatory lenders.

My defiant (though not optimistic) hope is this government, or the one that replaces it, finally accepts the enormous weight of evidence from welfare rights advocates, business groups, community legal centres, the OECD and parliament’s own economic advisory body.

That evidence says unequivocally that a substantial and permanent increase to the jobseeker payment is long overdue, and is needed to ensure it is fit for purpose as a safety net that supports people who can, to re-enter the workforce.

Right now, the payment is too low to enable people to participate in the things that can help them move from “welfare to work”.

Raise the rate for good. Help restore dignity and transform lives.