The South Australian (SA) government is more than doubling the cost of living concession for 185,000 residents to relieve the cost of living pressures in the state.
This means that home owner-occupiers eligible for the concession will receive a one-off payment of $449 (US$322) in the next financial year compared to the previous $217, while homeowner-occupiers who are also self-funded retirees will see their concession climb from $108 to $224.
This comes as petrol prices remain over $2 a litre, grocery prices rise due to the former, as well as supply issues, and power prices are set to increase from July 1.
Speaking on social media on Sunday, SA Premier Peter Malinauskas said the price of everything is currently going up and as premier, he is unable to change that.
“I want to be honest, as leader of the state, I’m not going to be able to reduce your petrol prices. It'd be just untrue if I said otherwise,” he said.
“Premiers can’t control the price of groceries, either, but what we can do is those concessions that are aimed at the people doing the toughest in our community, people on low incomes, fixed incomes, such as pensioners, for instance, we can provide support.”
The concession can only be paid to one person per household, and to be eligible, the person must live at the property and hold an eligible card, such a pensioner concession card or Department of Veteran Affairs card, receive an eligible Centrelink payment, or meet low income provisions.
The increase in the concession will come as part of the state Budget, due to be released on Thursday, and while the Budget would normally have been handed down in September or October, Malinauskas said he brought it forward to June.
“The reason why we did that is because we want to be able to start rolling out our election commitments as quickly as possible, and all of those are going to be funded in Thursday’s Budget,” he said.
Also included in the Budget will be the establishment of a $100 million Economic Recovery Fund designed to assist industry and business grow jobs in South Australia, a $200 million investment to build and operate five new technical colleges, and $45 million allotted to luring Australian and international tourists back to SA.
In addition, prior to winning the state election in March, Labor promised a large investment in health designed to tackle the ambulance ramping crisis though the recruitment of 100 more doctors, 300 more nurses, and 350 additional ambulance officers, as well as delivering 300 additional hospital beds.
