Liberal MP Julia Banks Says She’d Be Fine Living On $40 A Day And Are You Freaking Kidding Me?

There are many, many myths that exist around The Dole Bludgers. There’s the ever popular “job snobs” that won’t move to where there are jobs – despite current data proves there’s no way in hell an unemployed person is going to be able to afford a place in Sydney or Melbourne, where the most jobs are located.

And then there’s the idea unemployed folks are just plain lazy, although there are still more job-ready people than jobs, and current data suggests that most fulltime work is going to people already in fulltime work.

But most popular of all is the notion that living on the dole is easy and fun, getting money for nothing and, presumably, one’s chicks for free.

And as someone who last lived on the dole for a few months in 1993, when it was closer to the poverty line than it currently is and the government were neither killing unemployed people in Work For The Dole accidents nor checking my urine for chemicals, I can say this: living on the dole was neither easy nor fun even back then.

But Liberal MP Julia Banks, member for Chisholm, reckons the unemployed have it pretty sweet with their $40 a day to live on.

“I could live on 40 bucks a day knowing the government is supporting me with Newstart to look for employment,” she incorrectly told ABC radio in response to the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, people might not be able to make ends meet on a payment that comes nowhere near the poverty line.

Naturally the Greens have challenged her to put her barely-any-money where her mouth is, since members have previously made a point of doing a week on the Newstart equivalent and found it impossible. And we’re going to go out on a limb and say that she’s not going to do that – not least because she can’t.

That’s even though she’d have it easier than most people with her current perks – since a large slab of her expenses, such as transport, are paid for by her job.

Also accomodation shouldn’t be an issue for her as her expenses in Canberra are paid for by the taxpayer while at home she has a choice of her two homes – one in Malvern, one on the Mornington Pensinula – plus the three investment properties she’s listed on her Parliamentary Register of Interests, along with her family trust. Knowing you have five roofs over your head would definitely make living on $40 a day less daunting.

But if she didn’t have the taxpayer paying for everything, including the car she took to get to the ABC to talk about how the unemployed should stop expecting the taxpayer to pay for everything, how do you reckon she’d manage?

Let’s take Salt of the Earth Banksy at her word and consider whether she’d be able to manage on $40 a day without her current wealth and perks.

For starters, living in Malvern (which is near, but not in, her electorate of Chisholm). There’s nothing available below $300 a week, and that’s for a one bedroom apartment which might be a bit squeezy for her, her husband and their two children. But they’re both at university, so they’ve possibly moved out? In any case, $300 a week works out at $42.85 a day in rent, so… well, maybe her husband can go splitsies?

So that’ll leave just over $17 each day for her to buy groceries, pay for a phone, cover electricity, buy clothes and shoes and any medication she might need in order to live, transport costs, or things like getting a license renewed, or literally anything for her kids. Simple!

Obviously luxuries like any form of recreation or socialising is out of the question, and fripperies like home internet is out too – which, of course, is a problem since most communication with Centrelink is done electronically through MyGov these days. But Bootstrap Banks could just go stand outside of McDonalds any time she needs to use communicate with Centrelink, or search for jobs, or send her CV around or whatever, right? Problem solved!

And urgent medical treatment might eat into that $17, but it can be handled by St Vincents, the nearest public emergency room to Malvern, which is an easy 23 minute drive (a bit over $25 in a cab during the day, more at night) or a mere 55 minutes by two buses. Easy!

In short, we look forward to Banks’s next unsubstantiated claim. Might we suggest explaining to the media that she could also totally live on two biscuits a day, do a handstand for an hour if she wanted, and that she absolutely can rise into the air using only the power of her own self-righteousness about how easy the unemployed have it.