Aust. social welfare dept asked to help low-paid

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 10

Aust. social welfare dept asked to help low-paid

NZPA-AAP Canberra

The Australian Social Security Minister, Mr Brian Howe, said yesterday that he would ask his department to consider extending rent aid to low income earners receiving Family Income Support. Mr Howe was responding to a Government report released on Sunday by the Housing Minister, Mr Stewart West, which estimated that 700,000 Australian households had severe jiiffi-

culties meeting their home mortgage or rent costs. The report recommended that welfare and income maintenance payments be boosted, or else an expanded public housing programme. Mr Howe said that the Government had already acted on the report’s recommendations by extendiing the supplementary rent aid to long-term unemployed and by abolishing the separate income test on supplementary assistance.

A Labour back-bencher, Robert Tickner, called on the Government to meet its policy commitment to double public housing within 10 years. Mr Tickner, who is convener of the party’s Parliamentary housing sub-com-mittee, said that the report’s estimates that 40,000 Australians were living outdoors and 60,000 more were on the verge of homelessness were a social timebomb and a national dis-

“Clearly the private rental market is not meeting the needs of the homeless and the only alternative is to massively expand the public housing programme as recommended in the report,” he said. “It would not only remove the real risk of deep ' social conflict, but would significantly reduce the level of unemployment throughout Australia by stimulating the building industry.” ./

Failure to do so would trap almost a million Australians in perpetual poverty, he said. The crisis had not been caused by the policies of the Government but by the Draconian cuts to public housing funds made by the Fraser Government, he said. The Opposition Treasury spokesman, Jim Carlton, said that the report highlighted a contradiction between the Government’s social security and tax ob-

jectives. “The Government’s taxation measures will force more people into the welfare system and add to the existing waiting-list for public housing,” he said. The Government’s high interest rate strategy had placed an increasing burden on those with home mortgages, he said. Mr Howe said that the Government’s social security policy had been to direct most.help to those in great4>.

est need. People on social security renting privately usually fell into that category. * Mr Lowe said that the extended rent aid to the long-term unemployed would take effect from May. Abolishing the very strict income test on supplementary assistance as part of its attack on poverty traps would leave up to sAustls ($17.25) a week in the pockets of more than 30,000 pensioners, he said. , k r