Statement from Everybody’s ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ spokesperson Maiy Azize on the federal budget:
“The Federal Government has delivered a mediocre budget for one of the biggest crises the nation is facing. Finding a decent, affordable home has never been tougher – yet too many people have been pushed into housing stress because they’ve been locked out. “The budget has no plan to end Australia’s massive shortfall in social homes. Instead of acting on the biggest living cost facing Australians, it is tinkering around the edges. “Tonight’s changes to Commonwealth Rent Assistance won’t make housing more affordable overall. Two in three people on JobSeeker and nine in ten people on Youth Allowance will miss out on rent assistance altogether, and those who do get a small increase will find that it has been swallowed by surging rents. “The only way to help renters on the lowest incomes is to give a major boost to JobSeeker and other Centrelink payments, and reform rent assistance so that it reaches people in need and keeps up with rent increases. “Budgets are about choices. The government is forecasting a surplus this financial year, and it is pushing ahead with billions of dollars in tax cuts to people who don’t even want them. It has the means, but it does not have the will. “We need action that truly matches the scale of Australia’s housing crisis – that’s what the community expects. Everybody’s ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ will continue to push for 25,000 social homes to be built every year, for an end to tax handouts for landlords, and for more support for renters doing it tough.”
