More cost‑of‑living relief will roll out to more Australians from September.
We recognise that people are under the pump and we're doing something about it.
We're already rolling out tax cuts for every taxpayer, energy rebates for every household and a million small businesses, and a wage rise for minimum wage earners and more help is on the way from this month.
Starting in September, we'll provide more help to pay the rent, more help for people on pensions and payments, and cheaper medicines for more Australians.
Our 15 per cent increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance starting last year has been taking some of the edge off rents but they're still too high and that's why more help is on the way.
From September:
- We're increasing maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by a further 10 per cent which will benefit nearly one million households.
- We're extending the higher rate of JobSeeker to single recipients who have an assessed partial capacity to work less than 15 hours per week. They will benefit from at least an additional $54.90 a fortnight.
- We're finalising the rollout of 60 day dispensing with additional medicines being made available, bringing the total to almost 300.
- We're indexing payments for people on Jobseeker, the age pension, disability support pension, carer payment and parenting payment, as well as Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
This support is on top of the billions of dollars of relief that has been rolling out to millions of Australians to help ease the cost of living since July.
Other cost‑of‑living relief rolling out now and set to roll out in the future includes:
- Tax cuts for every taxpayer.
- Energy rebates for all households and a million small businesses.
- A freeze on the maximum price of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme co‑payments for one year for everyone with a Medicare card, and a five‑year‑freeze for pensioners and concession card holders.
- More action on checkout prices with the ACCC undertaking an inquiry into pricing and competition in the supermarket sector.
- $18.6 million to remove barriers to employment for Carer Payment recipients by providing more flexibility around work commitments.
- Waiving $3 billion in student debt for more than three million Australians to make student loans fairer.
- $1.1 billion to pay superannuation on government funded Paid Parental Leave.
- $138 million to boost funding for emergency and food relief and financial support services.
The primary focus of the Albanese Government is to ease the cost of living for Australians at the same time as we fight inflation in our economy.
Treasury estimates the government's energy bill relief and additional increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance are expected to directly reduce inflation by half of a percentage point in 2024-25 and are not expected to add to broader inflationary pressures.
Inflation is still higher than we'd like, but it's less than half its peak and much lower than the 6.1 per cent we inherited from the Coalition.
We know there's more to do in the fight against inflation and people are doing it tough, and that's why we're rolling out responsible cost‑of‑living relief while turning big Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses.
We're doing our bit in the Budget to fight inflation and ease pressure on Australians, including through cost‑of‑living relief and our responsible economic management.
