COST OF LIVING RELIEF

My Priorities

• Lower childcare costs to take the pressure off working families

• Reduce energy bills through household electrification & energy efficiency support

• Reduce the cost of university education

• Stop price-gouging by supermarkets, airlines and banks through competition reform

Getting Things Done

As your Curtin Independent MP, I’m proud to have helped deliver results for our community.

• $3bn in student debt relief for 3 million Australians

• 26 weeks paid parental leave, with super paid on top

• Increased wages for childcare workers

• Halved the price of prescription drugs for 6 million people

Every time I’m out in my electorate, I hear about the cost of living challenges people are facing.

Managing inflation is the best way to reduce cost of living pressures. The Government’s fiscal policy is one of many levers that affect inflation, but it is one that the government can actually control.

Budget 2024

In the 2024 Budget, the Government tried to walk the fine line of providing cost of living relief, without injecting more money into the economy and making inflation worse.

Is it working? Recent inflation figures create additional concerns.

The $300 energy rebate may technically reduce the measure of inflation, but it seems like a blunt instrument, not being means tested. 

There was no increase in the base rate of JobSeeker, rather a small increase in Commonwealth Rent Assistance and some tweaks to JobSeeker for people with reduced capacity to work.

This budget also included the previously announced changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts, HECS indexation and paid placements for students, and a freeze on medicine co-payments for everyone with a Medicare card.

For many in my electorate, those measures will be welcome.  Listen to my response to the 2024 Budget here.

The biggest cost of living issue raised with me and reiterated by a recent survey in my electorate, is housing.

The budget contained a new housing investment of $6.2 billion and a further $1 billion to help states and territories with infrastructure, as well as a 10% increase in Commonwealth Rental Assistance and additional concessional loans for community housing providers and other charities to support the delivery of new homes.

I often hear that people can’t find a builder.  This budget promises 20,000 additional fee-free TAFE places for construction-related courses and $1.8 million to streamline skills assessments for about 1,900 migrants from comparable countries who want to work in Australia’s housing construction industry.

Will this be enough on housing?  I hope it helps.  The reality is that it has taken 20 years to get to our current crisis situation on housing and it’s unlikely to be fixed in one budget. There is so much more we need to do. Read more about my Affordable Housing Policy here.