Change.org petition for Australia to implement a temporary Basic Income
This isn't my petition but it is one I consider important to share and get signatures on.
This is for a temporary Basic Income which is better than the current solution.
The current solution has been crashing the website that lets people access our social security system, meaning people who lost their jobs can't apply for social security and have no income at the moment.
The current solution doesn't provide any extra monetary support to people who would still need the money but make too much to get a social security payment (or that have a partner that makes too much to get a social security payment).
The current solution does not provide any extra monetary support to students or people on the disability pension.
The current solution helps businesses that employ people with their costs, but does not do much to help sole traders who have reasonable business expenses such as rent for business premises or other debt. Sole traders are told to go on the jobseeker payment but many have too much income for that still, but not enough to survive the costs they have and the jobseeker payment alone won't cover those costs.
The current system also punishes people before Coronavirus was an issue, which I won't go into right now as the petition is for a temporary UBI during this time, but we definitely should be considering this long term too.