Cheese, medicine and heating. Essentials that become “treats” when you fall into the ranks of the long-term unemployed, according to Marilyn King, who addressed a Fair Go For Pensioners (FGFP) rally in Melbourne on 20 May. King is the president of Willing Older Workers (WOW), a group formed in West Footscray more than a decade ago to help older unemployed workers get jobs and, increasingly, to stay alive.

She read the crowd a message recently sent to the WOW website: “Unemployed since forced redundancy in January 2013. Have had thoughts of suicide. No future. No super. I’ve tried everything, as well as voluntary work. I would be happy to be doing anything. I feel like I’m running on empty and running out of time. Many thanks if you can assist.”

Worse, King says, are messages written by family members telling other people’s stories. The father who killed himself when he realised that his life insurance would pay out on suicide; worth more dead than alive, he calculated. The husband too ashamed to live after he lost his job and couldn’t get another.

This protest was the latest in a series of actions organised by FGFP, which is calling on governments to “stop the war on the poor”. Rally chair and FGFP steering committee co-convener Roger Wilson talked about the need to intensify public opposition to the federal budget.

“Australia is a wealthy country”, he said, “wealthy in resources and wealthy in working class talent to produce the necessities of life with those resources”. Poverty, unemployment and homelessness in this country are an absolute disgrace, he said.

Kerry Davies, from the Council for Single Mothers and their Children, argued that the 2015 budget is no easier than last year’s. “It’s the slap in the face after the punch in the head”, she said.

Davies described it as “one of the worst budgets for women in the history of this country”, before reeling off dozens of attacks buried in the budget papers.

“Direct services to family violence were cut last year, they’ve been cut again and they’ll continue to cut them while they make some funny ads to convince us they care”, she said.

Speaking to Red Flag after the rally, Perc White, secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia Veterans Association, said that the protest was important, as was maintaining the link between workers’ organisations and the fight for pensioners’ rights. The MUA Veterans, along with the retired AMWU members’ group, he said, have for some years been working on ways to keep retired unionists in the struggle.

On the fight for justice for retired workers, pensioners and the poor, White said: “We’ll keep going as long as it’s necessary … it does require persistence, hard work and endeavour, but we think we can get there.”