Australian Unemployed Workers' Union (AUWU)

Good morning.

And today we're going to be talking, our guest in the program today is going to be Jess Harrison, Jessica Harrison, who's a member of the Unemployed Workers Union, and she's also an activist down in Gippsland, or lives around Wontaggie, of course.

But yesterday she was in Melbourne for that rally we promoted last week about Centrelink, or not what's called Centrelink these days, but the fact that the government is clamping down on the unemployed yet again.

And there was a rally at the office of the minister yesterday, or the office of the...

Right, just fading out the hard road there by the hilltop hoods because we are back with City Limits.

Sorry we faded that, yeah.

On the line we have Jess Harrison from the Unemployed Workers Union, of course, and she also was a presenter of the program on the station, 3CR, but yesterday she was at a rally.

We've got Jess...

Now, multiple elements of the framework, which governs the cancellation of Social Security payments, are set to restart from the 26th of October after being paused since March of 2025 in the face of revelations of the TCF's unlawful operation and catastrophic impacts on people living below the poverty line.

And as you just heard, the AUWU is organizing a protest on Tuesday, the 27th of October, to fight back against the resumption of TCF measures.

And so we will have information about that in our show notes and hopefully also get some updates about it from Jessica.

So good morning, Jessica.

And yet, you know, these cancellations, these payment cancellations, the way that these decisions are made, continue to operate under quite similar logics.

And last year, we covered some of the alarming findings of the Commonwealth Ombudsman's report on the scale and process of unlawful payment cancellations under the TCF.

But of course, the AUWU itself is deeply familiar with the impacts of the TCF on people living in poverty, and you have been since it's come into existence.

Can you tell us about some of the issues that people have raised with you through the advocacy line about the impacts of the TCF on their lives?