Change to Commonwealth Rent Assistance excludes millions and is embarrassingly low

In response to the government’s announcement of a 10% change to the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the Antipoverty Centre is calling on the government to stop tinkering with Centrelink payments and take meaningful action so that welfare recipients are no longer left behind.

Background

There are 5,190,715 receiving an income support payment. 1,180,820 of these are receiving CRA. Because community housing rents consume 100% of CRA, 105,235 tenants will receive $0 of any increase. For people who do not qualify for the maximum CRA amount, 6-monthly indexation will see 342,950 people receive a slightly lower payment when indexation applied later this month. The total number of income support recipients who will receive any benefit at all from the change to CRA is 7,33,820.¹

Quotes attributable to Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and Disability Support Pension recipient Kristin O’Connell

Claiming a few dollars a week as a heroic cost of living measure is another embarrassment for the Albanese government.

Welfare recipients are sick of the government trying to bribe us with pitiful changes to payments that don’t even keep up with cost increases, let alone provide meaningful support. We are desperate for them to start taking seriously the dire circumstances so many of us are in.

People living alone will get a maximum of $11.50 week. People in sharehouses a maximum of $7.67. And this government wants us to clap?

To demonstrate how meaningless this is: Only 14% of people on income support will get anything at all from this change to CRA, leaving 4,457,000 with nothing. In my case, this change will see my rent go from 80% of my DSP to 77% – not even enough to cover my last rent increase.

Not one welfare recipient is better off with more rent assistance compared to an equivalent increase in our main Centrelink payment. The only way to prevent welfare recipients struggling with the cost of housing is to ensure that all payments are above the poverty line, and buy and build public homes to address the problems with our cruel housing system long-term.

Media contact: email media at antipovertycentre.org or call/message 0413 261 362 via Signal