Almost one in 10 Canberrans live below the poverty line, and a quarter of those are children.

This grim statistic is predicted to increase even further if the next Federal Government fails to act, says the ACT Council of Social Service (ACTCOSS).

According to 2022 ACT Cost of Living Report released by ACTCOSS today, Friday 6 May, poverty in the ACT has now exceeded pre-Covid levels, and ACTCOSS deputy CEO Mr Adam Poulter says “the sad truth is things are getting worse”.

“Canberrans living on low incomes are being hit hardest during the biggest increase in the cost of living in over 20 years. Far from sharing in an economic recovery of our town, more people are seeking support from ACT community sectors and organisations due to the rising cost of living and declining income support,” Mr Poulter said.

“Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen the phasing out of supplements provided during the pandemic, JobKeeper rises and the Covid supplement, that’s meant poverty has lifted back up to levels higher than they were before the pandemic. We see 38,000 people in our community living below the poverty line – that’s nearly one in 10 Canberrans and one quarter of those are children.

“A single person on JobSeeker is now living on just $46 a day with their weekly income $138 below the poverty line. For a young person looking for work on Youth Allowance, their weekly income is now almost $200 below the poverty line.

“We need the next Federal Parliament to raise the rate of working age payments to $70 a day. Raise it to the poverty line so that people can pay for the basics as they go through tough times,” he said.

Housing has been at the top of ACTCOSS’s list of priorities to address the cost-of-living crisis in the ACT, and Mr Poulter said many experts expect rental increases will hit double-digit growth in the upcoming year.

“Canberra is the most expensive capital city to rent a house or unit and we have a housing crisis. We have a lack of social and affordable housing, and we need at least 5,500 units to be built,” he said.

“We also need to look at the Commonwealth rental assistance, which helps people in private rentals on income support. It is too low, and in the ACT, we see the highest rate, 55 per cent, of those are in rental stress. We need to see an increase by 50 per cent.”

ACTCOSS are urging ordinary Canberrans to do their part in relieving some of the pressures the most vulnerable in the ACT community face on a daily basis. Mr Poulter has asked anyone who is able to volunteer their time at community organisations to “help do their bit”.

“We can only imagine what is going to happen in the next 12 months if action isn’t taken to address this. Just imagine if people are struggling to pay the rent now, how much worse that’s going to get. Action is needed by leadership from both levels of government. There’s much that can be done by both levels,” he said.

“As we move into a federal election, we need the main parties to step up and strengthen their platform on these issues. We do a regular community survey, and we know that four out of five of our organisations are reporting increasing numbers of people in high stress requiring their services.

“Frontline service providers can speak to what these cost-of-living pressures mean to people on the poorest incomes; people whose choice is sometimes between paying the rent or filling their medical prescription or having meat and fruit and vegetables. We hear of families where sometimes the parents go without so their children can eat. That’s the situation we’ve got, and the sad truth is things are getting worse.”

Canberra Anglicare reports emergency food supply running low

CEO of Anglicare NSW South/ACT, Mr Jeremy Halcrow, said Canberrans are being forced to choose between rent, food, and medical costs at an unprecedented rate.

“What we are seeing at the moment is a huge demand across the board – unprecedented for this time of year. We’re seeing people who have never come to our service before. Some of our centres in Canberra, indeed our centre here in Civic, are seeing an increase in demand over the last couple of weeks,” Mr Halcrow said.

“Usually, it’s at the end of winter that we see this kind of impact, so it’s extremely concerning for us. Going into winter, where we are going to have peak demand and we’re already running low on supply… we are feeling that anxiety of how we are actually going to help people in desperate need.”

ACT Shelter says major parties ‘not interested’ in low-income Australians

CEO of ACT Shelter, Travis Gilbert, showed genuine concern and frustration with the major political parties today, saying they’ve “deprioritised, again” low-income Australians.

“What we know about the low to moderate income households, housing costs are the biggest expenditure item in the household budget. We know there are as many as 50,000 Canberrans on the verge of housing stress or are in housing stress, and probably a quarter of those are paying more than 50 per cent of their income on rent,” Mr Gilbert said.

“Two weeks out from a federal election, you’d think the major parties would be pretty concerned about that – I would – but no. In week one, we saw Labor and the Coalition reject even the reviewing of the adequacy of the JobSeeker payment and reject increasing rent assistance. These are the two parties that made this a cost-of-living election, but unless you’re in the workforce or on an aged pension, they’re blind to you. They’re not interested. They’ve deprioritised you again and that’s not acceptable.

“In this town, we have one-bedroom units with a median asking rent of $430 a week – your max rate of JobSeeker assistance is about $340, so you’re already $95 a week behind in week one. Are we seeing any investment in social housing? Not really.

“It says something pretty terrible about the pollical parties’ attitudes towards people on low to moderate incomes. They are being blamed for their circumstances and we are not seeing any interest to do the policy work to find solutions to make their lives easier.”

Vinnies says cost of living a ‘disaster’

Director of Special Works at Vinnies Canberra/Goulburn, Stuart Davis-Meehan, said that their services are seeing increased demand across all spectrums.

“The cost of living increases we are currently experiencing for people on low incomes is just a disaster. We are seeing it across all our services – the demand for accommodation, the demand for support through emergency relief …” Mr Davis-Meehan said.

“One of the things I thought we learnt during Covid is we can actually resolve and work much better with homelessness than we have done before. Where there is a political will to solve these problems, things happen, and we just need to see some leadership in that space.”

Read the full findings of the 2022 ACT Cost of Living Report at www.actcoss.org.au

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