I am a 65-year-old woman living in a small town in South Gippsland, near the wild coastline of the southern ocean.
I moved here 17 years ago, while my children were living with me. It is a lovely place for teenagers to grow up but they have now left home to live and work elsewhere.
I worked part-time from home until the economic downturn meant my employer, an environmental NGO, was not able to afford my position.
I’ve lived on what used to be called Newstart for nearly 10 years.
In a small town there is limited chance for full-time occupation, especially at my age. However, I still get excited when an opportunity arises, and I have applied for multiple jobs as a receptionist, as a library assistant and as a seasonal park ranger. Full-time paid work has to take into account my osteoarthritis, which means I can’t stand for long.
Part-time cleaning is the only job I have managed to find locally, and longer shifts cause me knee pain.
On benefits, maintaining my house, car and paying for bills and arthritis medication has been a constant balancing act. Luckily there is a food bank in my town which I visit to save on my food bill if I have a big expense.
Even so, I get a knot in my stomach when a bill arrives or I worry that I have spent over my budget.
This year it came as a complete surprise to hear that the coronavirus supplement would double my fortnightly income for six months. I worried that I would become accustomed to the increased amount and find it hard when it finished. This did not happen, as the car’s engine “threw a rod”. I have had to do without transport for the winter as I try to save the supplement for the replacement motor.
I started planning for maintenance work on the house, such as fixing the leaking toilet, rusty wood heater and rusted rings on the stove. Of course once those jobs are done, there are many more. I have noticed mould on the laundry ceiling, not a good sign. I have bought firewood to use if I don’t feel up to cutting it. Usually I scavenge wood to heat the house, or friends drop off their pruned branches. I have visited the dentist – this is a real treat as usually I can only get dental work if a tooth is infected and throbbing. The public dental clinic is only allowed to treat you if you are in pain.
My social networks are a great support to me – I have been lent a car and I volunteer at the community garden, where we can take home fresh vegetables, in season. I help at the community house running a free food stall. My neighbours are in a similar situation, older women with mortgages. They have had haircuts, fixed holes in their walls and bought curtains to keep in warmth, which is practical and increases their resilience. When you are on a low income, even buying a new top from the op shop has to be carefully thought about – do I really need this? Can I do without?
As I live near the ocean I love to go there to swim in summer or watch the waves. I don’t have expensive tastes – I joke to my friends that a trip to the tip shop is my idea of a day out! To celebrate the supplement I bought daffodil bulbs – now they are flowering and looking lovely.
I have no illusions that the government has introduced the coronavirus supplement in a sudden burst of conscience, after Newstart was kept low for more than 25 years. It took advice, which proved correct, to increase payments to people on the lowest income. Our spending has circulated in local economies and cushioned the impact of the economic recession to a degree.
We can guess that there is an argument within cabinet between the various factions about what to do next. The supplement will be reduced by the end of September, then again at the end of December to an unknown amount. In the future we are unsure what we will be living on. What we need is a permanent rise in jobseeker payments to at least the poverty line.
I know there are many people in my situation, especially women, who are statistically more likely to live with financial hardship in later life. Maybe I should have planned better for the future when I was younger. A friend recently asked me about my plans for the future and I was unable to answer. When you are living on a limited income you don’t make any travel or retirement plans beyond a road trip or more repairs to the house.
