Chancellor and ÖVP leader Karl Nehammer was outraged on Wednesday that the red model against child poverty would mean even more money for large families – this “mocks everyone who goes to work every day”. SPÖ federal manager Sandra Breiteneder countered that this was “comparing apples with pears” and that rumored reversals were “unserious”.
The debate was recently reignited by the example of a nine-member migrant family in Vienna who are dependent on social welfare and receive 4,600 euros a month including rent assistance. With the model of SPÖ leader Andreas Babler, they said, this family would even receive 6,800 euros, a daily newspaper wrote on Wednesday.
“It won’t happen with me as Chancellor”
This prompted ÖVP leader Nehammer to take action: “The SPÖ model is an attack on everyone who gets up and goes to work every day. It mocks those who finance our social safety net with their taxes,” he said in a press release. The red model is “simply unfair to those who finance it,” he said. “With me as chancellor, there will be no such excess in the social system,” Nehammer said, instead a five-year waiting period is necessary before you can receive social assistance. Only those who have previously paid into the Austrian social system should have full entitlement to social benefits, he emphasized.
SPÖ Federal Secretary Breiteneder admitted on the sidelines of a press conference that she understands that everyone who works sees the sum as unfair. However, the debate is now “comparing apples with oranges” because the SPÖ model for basic child benefit also includes many benefits in kind such as free kindergarten from the age of one or free school meals. “Our model is much more comprehensive,” she stressed, “you can’t compare them like that.” The published calculations are “unreliable,” Breiteneder stressed. When asked, she said that they did not want to be pinned down to a number.
“Here two blind people are arguing about colors”
Starting debates on “extreme examples” is “not serious”. The SPÖ is concerned that children do not have to live in poverty and instead become future taxpayers through education. The interior ministers of recent years – mostly from the ÖVP – are responsible for the “failed integration policy”, Breiteneder countered.
“This is two blind people arguing about colors,” said FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, commenting on the debate. “The financial excesses in Vienna and the associated escalation in the area of security are the result of a co-production between a wandering SPÖ-led Viennese state government and a weak ÖVP-led federal government.” The SPÖ and ÖVP are trying to shift responsibility onto the other – “that is more than embarrassing,” says Kickl. The Chancellor’s behavior is particularly “cheap”: “Nehammer is making it particularly easy for himself. He may be Chancellor, but he is not responsible for anything.”
NEOS leader Beate Meinl-Reisinger expressed understanding that working people are right to be surprised by such sums. However, the matter is legal and, above all, the ÖVP and FPÖ are also on board, as they have destroyed the original social welfare system and thus caused the “patchwork across Austria”. More benefits in kind and incentives for work that must be worthwhile are needed.
“You can discuss everything”
The issue of social assistance will also be a topic at the next state governors’ conference, as Salzburg’s state governor Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP) explained in the “Ö1” midday journal on Wednesday. However, Haslauer was skeptical about a nationwide standardization of social assistance, as recently demanded by Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens). “You can discuss everything, the only important thing is that regional differences are taken into account,” he said, pointing to the higher cost of living in cities like Innsbruck or Salzburg.
Vienna City Councillor Peter Hacker (SPÖ) sees part of the problem in the job placement service provided by the Public Employment Service (AMS). “The core problem is that the AMS is not working. And I’m tired of hearing criticism from them,” Hacker told the “Krone” newspaper (Wednesday). “Every business tells me that the unemployed are just coming to get their unemployment stamps,” Hacker criticised.
