INDIGENOUS people have suffered the most under welfare reforms that lead to benefits being stopped for eight weeks for people who fail to comply with the regulations imposed by the Howard government.
And the Rudd Government has been condemned for not ending the system, despite promising to do so while in Opposition.
New figures show that the number of people who have hadtheir payments stopped has more than doubled over the past eight months.
Under the regime, recipients who make three mistakes suffer an immediate loss of payment for eight weeks.
Mistakes include refusing to take up suitable employment, leaving suitable employment with no reasonable excuse, engineering their own dismissal and refusing to attend full-time work-for-the-dole activities.
In 2006-07, the first year of the scheme, 15,509 penalties were imposed, and in the following eight months to February this year, 31,789 more penalties were applied.
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