Food, bills and rent still top concerns for millions of Australians

ABC NEWS (Australia)

While the latest inflation data is encouraging Australians have been doing it tough amid a cost-of-living crisis.

Transcript

00:00Well, the reality is it's still very tough for a lot of Queenslanders and Australians,

00:07of course, regarding making ends meet, I suppose, in this cost of living, if you want to call

00:15it crisis. And mortgage and mortgage payments play a big role in that. And so the news that

00:25there is a possibility of an interest rate cut due to, I suppose, the estimate falling

00:33below the RBA expectations that, you know, it is likely and hopefully from our sector

00:40that we get a rate cut in this quarter.

00:45So what's been the demand on your services over the past couple of years?

00:50Our demand in Queensland has increased by 27%, which is quite huge in 2024. And the

01:02leading presenting case, or one of the leading presenting cases, is mortgage stress. So at

01:09currently, you know, a recent poll, I think, is about one and a half million households

01:16are experiencing some form of mortgage stress. That's calculated, or we calculated at if

01:2440% and above of your income is going towards a mortgage, then, yeah, that's when the pressures

01:33happen within the household meeting other essential living expenses.

01:37And without identifying people, can you give us any examples of people you've come across

01:43who've had a bit of an impact on you about how tough their particular situation is?

01:50Yeah. So, you know, our members, which is our financial counsellors, provide us with a lot of

01:57case stories, I suppose, just to provide evidence to the government of the need for financial

02:03counselling, particularly in Queensland. And we're hearing some horrific stories. I mean,

02:09when it comes to people being forced to move from homes, you know, in some cases, it may be

02:17due to not meeting the mortgage expectations and having foreclosed on homes, but also,

02:24on the other hand, to the rental market and people being pushed out of that. So we see

02:30homeless rates increase, particularly we've seen that in Queensland. And we

02:39suppose the impact then on the family household is where do people live if they're facing homelessness?

02:48And so that's one of the things that, you know, our services look into. And we quite often see,

02:55and when I say quite often see, we do have these types of cases. So it's not in the thousands

03:00and things like that. But we do see them. And that can be very devastating, not only on the

03:07person who's been impacted, but certainly on our financial counsellors, who see a lot of

03:12devastation from the cost of living that we've experienced in the last two or three years.

03:17So a rate cut comes soon enough for a lot of people?

03:20Our sector would welcome it, Joe. It's, you know, when we're talking about one and a half

03:27million households, that's a lot of people that would welcome a rate cut. It's good

03:35news if that is the case. On the other side of the equation, though, we are still going to

03:41experience cost of living pressures, particularly in Queensland, because there's a housing crisis

03:49that we're going through at the moment. And when there's a lack of supply in housing,

03:56that creates pressures on cost of living as well. And I think also, we've just come

04:04through Christmas, and for our financial counsellors, particularly in Queensland,

04:10you know, the months of February, March and April are our busiest months through, you know,

04:17from Christmas, and then we get those end of quarter bills, such as electricity,

04:23and the phone bills, they keep coming. And so it puts a lot of pressure on a lot of households

04:29still. Might there be a bit of optimism now that the price rises might ease off a bit?

04:37Yeah, I'm not a professional in being an economist, but I mean, there are, you know,

04:47there are indicators that if inflation does drop, that potentially cost of living

04:55can drop. But there's other factors, you know, if you've got still a housing crisis,

05:02if you've got lack of supply in certain goods, particularly building goods and things like that

05:07as well, it may not make a difference. So it just all depends on the geography of certain cities and

05:15regional cities. So there's a lot of other factors. But look, the bottom line is, though,

05:21a rate cut for a lot of Australians would be very welcomed.

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