Single parents set to miss out
Single parents with older children hoping to receive more generous financial assistance are on tenterhooks waiting to find out whether the measure will feature in next month’s federal budget.
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher on Sunday said Labor was “deadly serious” about fixing gendered economic inequality. But she said the government was still considering the recommendations of two expert panels to extend the eligibility of the single parenting payment.
Australians who receive this payment, who are predominantly women, are shifted to the less generous
J o b s e e k e r p a y m e n t when their youngest child turns eight-years-old and lose about $100 a week as a result.
The Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce and the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee both called for the children’s cut-off age to be lifted when they released their recommendations to government last week.
Speaking to ABC’S Insiders, Senator Gallagher refused to say if she was personally advocating for the cut-off age to be returned to 16 years old.
The Labor frontbencher, who received sole parent payments after she was widowed as a young mother, said she wouldn’t disclose the discussions of the expenditure review committee finalising the budget. “We are having a look at it,” she said. “You know, we don’t set up these task forces to then not seriously consider the recommendations that they come forward with.
“The budget will look to do as much as it can within the responsible fiscal environment that we are in to deal with addressing disadvantage and inequality where we can”.
Senator Gallagher hinted an increase to rental assistance could be in the budget but conceded it was hard for people on the Jobseeker payment to live, even though Labor is set to reject calls from its own panel of experts to raise the rate.