WITH about 132,000 Queenslanders unemployed, St Vincent de Paul’s state chief executive officer Kevin Mercer has welcomed a new report that examines the best ways to lower the number of people forced into poverty and suffering financial stress.
Mr Mercer said an increasing number of Queenslanders could no longer afford the basics for survival.
“The Fairer Tax and Welfare System for Australia report highlights how we can lift hundreds of thousands of Australians out of poverty with much-needed increases to JobSeeker and Parenting Payments,” Mr Mercer said.
St Vincent de Paul Society commissioned the Australian National University to provide a report that offers thoughtful solutions not just on how to lift vulnerable Australians out of poverty, but how to fund these critical outcomes.
Queensland has the second-highest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Australia at 4.5 per cent – just above Tasmania.
“We have also seen a dramatic increase in housing costs – the average Queensland rent increased by $104 a week in the last year,” Mr Mercer said.
“With housing costs increasing, alongside general cost-of-living increasing and electricity costs increasing between 21.5 per cent to 28 per cent across Queensland as of July, the St Vincent de Paul Society is increasingly hearing from Queenslanders on JobSeeker who can no longer afford the basics for survival.”
The new report examines how a fairer tax and welfare system could be set up.
It describes three models that would be budget neutral, do not require a major overhaul of systems and would each strengthen our progressive tax system.
“The first obvious step is to drop the stage 3 tax cuts legislated by the previous government in a different economic environment,” the Society’s national president Mark Gaetani said.
“Our reforms benefit low to moderate income households by requiring a small number of high income and high wealth households to pay around $3,000 a year extra in taxation.
‘The 2023 Intergenerational Report shows how young people will have to disproportionately shoulder the tax burden into the future.
“Our modelling increases the tax-free threshold to $24,000 and improves the superannuation balances for young people with lower- and middle-income wealth by around 16 per cent.”
All models are designed to assist low-income and low wealth households, single parents, isolated persons, renters and those relying on working age welfare payments
Even the lowest costing of the three options ($4 billion) would help lift 193,000 people out of poverty across the country. It would increase JobSeeker by $176 per fortnight (pf) and Parenting Payment by $167 pf.
Mr Mercer said the number of people coming to St Vincent de Paul Queensland for help increased by 15 per cent in the last financial year and that’s after several years of growth.
“The number of people experiencing or at severe risk of homelessness has also increased and too many of our regional housing markets are at breaking point,” he said.
It’s clear that more and more Queensland families are struggling to get by, and by working together to lift people out of poverty and providing a fairer state for all, our entire community will benefit in the long-run.
