Late welfare call adds $80m for dole payments

The Coalition has made a post-budget call to extend a one-off cash payment to people on the dole and other allowances.

More than one million people on the Newstart and other allowances will now receive a one-off $75 payment for singles and $125 for couples by the end of June.

The Coalition has made a post-budget call to extend a one-off cash payment to people on the dole and other allowances, adding one million people and $80 million to the measure after deciding the legislation would not pass without the concession.

Scott Morrison met Josh Frydenberg and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on Tuesday night after the budget had been ­delivered and decided to boost the policy from its $285m to $365m, with the new figures included in legislation that was introduced to parliament yesterday morning.

“I think it’s very important that we alleviate some of these cost-of-living pressures, and we were ­focused on putting this additional $80m to work,” the Treasurer told the National Press Club yesterday.

“This will secure the passage of this piece of legislation through the parliament, and that is important as well. Because we want it to be in people’s pockets before the end of this financial year. There is no ­excuse not to pass it.”

Initially only applying to people on the age pension, disability support pension, carer payment, single-parent payment and a range of veterans’ allowances, the legislation for the policy now includes an additional 11 payment categories. More than 720,000 people on the Newstart Allowance and ­almost 300,000 on other payments will now receive the one-off $75 payment for singles and $125 for couples by the end of June when the legislation passes the Senate.

“This is just chaotic,” Opposition Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen said yesterday morning. “It just shows that this government doesn’t get it and that vulnerable Australians are an afterthought.”

The budget also included a measure to save $2.1 billion over five years by sharing employment reporting from the tax office with the Department of Human Services in a bid to prevent overclaiming of payments when people are working part- or full-time.

Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher, who had not heard Mr Frydenberg’s press club address, said the decision was made “in the last few days”.

“Any suggestion that this ­impacts the surplus is quite wrong,” he said. “We have considered the arguments, the case for a broader range of people to be ­included in them and that is what we are doing.”

Mr Frydenberg argued in a post-budget interview with the Nine Network that people on Newstart did not need to be given the relief payment because “the majority of people … move to ­another payment or off Newstart within 12 months”.

Budget day was also the 25th anniversary of the last time the dole was increased in real terms. It is now valued at slightly more than $260 each week for single people with no children.

Former prime minister John Howard, the Business Council of Australia, community groups and serving senator Arthur Sinodinos have all said the rate is too low and serves as an impediment for ­people seeking work.

The change in policy means anyone who was on the dole on Tuesday will receive the energy supplement by the end of June.

The Prime Minister yesterday told Melbourne radio 3AW that the matter was not a mistake.

“No, I wanted to see it passed through the parliament and that’s what you have to do, to be pragmatic,” he said.