Last week, Guardian Australia spent a day speaking to people in western Sydney about what they wanted from the budget. Housing was the most common response, followed by health, childcare and social services.
While funds have been earmarked for aged care and infrastructure, there is little indication that either housing or welfare will be boosted in Scott Morrison’s budget on Tuesday night, despite groups as diverse as the Business Council of Australia, Deloitte Access Economics, the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Council of Social Service all backing a rise in the Newstart payment.
Drew Palmer, 33, Harris Park
There’s not enough housing. [Building more houses] benefits homeless people, people with drug and alcohol problems. I think it fixes a lot of problems. A lot of other things integrate into that.
I’m studying community services. In Canada, they help people off the street into housing and it was quite successful. What works over there might not work over here but, I mean, how come we’re not trying things like that? We’ve got resources to do it.
Huong Truong, 61, top photo, Westmead
My son and my daughter both got married and moved, and I live alone [in public housing] and every time the rent goes up, up, up, but nobody comes to fix it up for me.
I’m very angry. Sometimes I want to go to the [Centrelink] counter to complain, because my money isn’t the same. $440, $395, sometimes it’s $300 – later, I don’t know. I want to complain to housing, ‘Why isn’t my money from Centrelink the same?’ It’s not correct for me.
Joe Abassi, 67, Guildford
The last three years the energy prices have more than doubled. I was paying $1,500, I’m paying nearly $4,000 now [for my mixed business]. The government is stupid, selling everything to the private sector so they can play with the prices the way they want.
There should be a control! Set a price. I’m OK, I own my own business. I still put my air conditioner and my heater on but some pensioner – when winter comes, they can’t bloody put the heater on. The pension in this country is rubbish. Forty years paying taxes and you get $400.
Frank Webb, 64, Merrylands
I’ve got four sons, all gainfully employed now, but for a period of time the eldest with a PhD in chemistry couldn’t get a job. He was 34 and for 12 months he couldn’t get work. The government says we’ve got to work on Stem but there are no jobs at the end for them. The system is stacked against young people coming in. We’ve had Tafe close down – that’s where I went to university. Tafe and apprenticeships are becoming unavailable to people.
Also, house prices are being forced up because investors are coming in. The government has started to wind negative gearing back but there’s so much more winding back that has to happen. I’m concerned we’re going to end up with a crisis.
Katherine Hardacre, 33, Penrith
There’s a cap at the moment, where the government will only give you $7,500 back for your childcare benefit. Because [my three-year-old] Scarlett [left, pictured with Katherine and Chelsea, 5] goes four days a week this year, she’s going to reach that cap. After April, I’ll have to pay the full fee without the 50% you normally get back. It’ll cost me $2,500 or so.
But after 1 July next year, they’ve scrapped the cap. They’ve changed some other rules around income but those don’t impact me, it just means she’ll be going four days a week and we’ll get the 50% rebate the whole year. Which is awesome.
Gerard O’Dwyer, 33 Guildford
At Riverside theatre, where I work now, we need all the funding we can get. I’m also part of Ruckus ensemble, we used to meet every Monday at Sydney Dance Company but now there’s no Ruckus because of the funds. The funding ran out. There’s no money to run drama workshops. To me, ‘youth’ is social outings but there’s not enough people.
