Single parents hope to sway Wakefield
In the northern suburbs seat of Wakefield, a single mother living on welfare hopes to make a dent in a seat with some unique characteristics.
Many of Adelaide’s northern suburbs share a stubbornly high unemployment rate, low socio-economic demographics, and high rates of single-parent families.
The Gillard government’s move to shift many single parents from parenting support payments to the Newstart Allowance – worth about $150 a fortnight less – has politically energised that latter constituency.
In Queenstown, Port Adelaide the Single Parents Action Group was formed to protest the changes. It’s from that group Sheree Clay, the Greens’ Wakefield candidate, emerged.
Clay, 30, an Elizabeth resident, a mother and the State Coordinator for SPAG, says she was forced to drop her TAFE studies after the Newstart changes.
“I couldn’t do it because of all the changes the government had put through. Because they’d increased child care fees for studying parents… it meant with the extra money I had to pay in child care and the fact that my diploma was five full days a week, and my loss with Newstart… I would have all up lost $311.40 a fortnight if I’d kept studying.
“So I couldn’t continue… and I was quite devastated about that.”
Single parent families by statistical area, Census 2011
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In Wakefield, Holden’s future continue to dominate headlines. All major party candidates for the seat interviewed by InDaily, including Clay, nominated the car manufacturer’s future as a key local voter issue.
Seventeen-hundred workers still toil at the Elizabeth plant. The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union claims the factory supports another 16,000 jobs in the north.
If those figures are correct, and the reliance of the parts sector on the Elizabeth production line is absolute, then the closure of Holden would effectively double the region’s unemployment rate in a single stroke.
But unemployment – even if the global car giant stays – is still high.
Last month unemployment in Northern Adelaide reached 7.1 per cent, down from a January high of 9.0.
Teenage unemployment sits at 37.5 per cent, more than 10 points higher than anywhere else in the State.
“You have to get out in the street and see how poorly they’re living, it’s atrocious,” Clay told InDaily.
“When I’m out campaigning, I see people, and they’re wearing really old, faded clothes, ripped clothes, and they’re living really badly.
“I saw a guy go to a butcher the other day and he was almost in tears. He said to the butcher I’ve only got $4.30, can you give me $4.30 worth of mince for me and my son. And it was so sad, but the butcher actually gave him probably about $11 or $12 of meat, and he said I put a bit extra in there for you mate.
“It’s quite bad out there at the moment, and people are really suffering.”
Socio-Economic Index For Areas, Census 2011
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SPAG hopes to run candidates at the next State Election under the banner of the new Single Parents Party, but despite the group being her political awakening, Clay said the Greens’ broader policy position appealed to her.
“The big one that I was looking at this morning was Holden. I just sent an email out, I want to start working on that.
“In the meantime, we’ve been doing a lot of agricultural stuff. We’ve just bought out our sustainable farming [policy]. We’ve also got our mental health for rural communities policy.
“We did bring something out last night, I’m just trying to remember what it was, I did read it. I’d have to have a look at it. We brought about seven or eight things out for rural areas.”
Labor’s Nick Champion, who holds the seat by a healthy 10.5 per cent, agreed one of the key issues in his seat would be employment.
“Clearly the issue of car manufacturing at Holden’s is a key issue, as employment is generally. Jobs are one of the critical issues in my electorate, no doubt about that, along with health and education, disability care, the National Broadband Network and the state of the overall economy.”
Champion last week opened a trade and training centre at Craigmore High School, and in June announced Federal Government funding for a freight terminal in Penfield.
He said no-one had brought up parenting welfare payment changes on the campaign trail.
The Liberal Party’s Tom Zorich hopes to regain the seat for the Liberal Party, which had held it since 1946 before Champion’s 2007 win.
Zorich owns a chain of sporting apparel stores across the northern suburbs. He nominated cost of living pressures, which he said were fuelled by the carbon tax, as one of the key issues for the electorate.
“People are telling me the high cost of living is a major issue for them. Job security, the carbon tax, has certainly had an effect around our electorate and the country.
“The removal of the carbon tax would have an integral effect to households. It will drive prices down on electricity and gas.
“Rebooting the economy with small business being the engine room for employment in their electorate. Being a small businessman myself, I know that it’s been very tough … over the last three years.”
