People could face housing stress and homelessness when pandemic support payments are wound back in the new year, advocates have warned.
The Morrison government will lower the Jobseeker unemployment supplement by $100 a fortnight on January 1 and the JobKeeper payment by $200 on January 4.
The new rates will be $150 a fortnight for the Jobseeker supplement and $1000 for JobKeeper and are effective until the end of March.
The cuts come as rental and housing prices are soaring on the Sunshine Coast and vacancy rates have hit rock bottom.
The vacancy rate for rentals on the Sunshine Coast was just 0.4 per cent in November, sparking bidding wars as people compete for the few properties available.
Property values are also soaring amid an explosion in demand for houses on the Sunshine Coast, with many suburbs experiencing record prices.
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Federal Labor has warned the government not to go ahead with the payment cuts, saying it’s too soon and the jobs market is still weak in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The government should reconsider it,” Labor Melbourne MP Bill Shorten told Nine’s Today Show on Tuesday.
“We are not out of the woods yet with this pandemic and the economic effects, they reverberating around the economy, especially in regional towns and suburbs where there is a lot of casual workers who have born the biggest brunt.
“For the less well off, we shouldn’t be cutting their circumstances at this point in time.”
Mr Shorten noted there were more than one million people on the unemployment queue and that number was likely to increase.
A report by Equity Economics has warned of “a significant increase in housing stress and homelessness” when the Jobseeker supplement is fully phased out in March.
The report, commissioned by Everybody’s Home, estimated homelessless would soar by 9 per cent by June 2021, representing 7,500 more people without a roof over their heads.
“At the same time the number of Australians experiencing housing stress is also forecast to rise,” the report said.
“It is estimated that the number of households under housing stress will increase by 24 per cent to almost 880,000.”
Everybody’s Home is campaigning to “fix” Australia’s housing system which it said had “skyrocketing rents” and “crazy house prices”.
-with AAP
