2 days Ago By Sage Swinton, Jamieson Murphy
It's being called the cost-of-living election. Login or signup to continue reading Hunter residents and national polls indicate the rising cost of basic necessities will be the number one issue during the federal election campaign trail. A national reader survey by ACM, publisher of this masthead and more than 100 titles, found the cost of living was the issue that will matter most when people cast their vote on May 3, with 35 per cent of respondents placing it in the top three most likely to influence their votes.
Hunter emergency relief organisations have witnessed a significant jump in people seeking help, while young voters continue to struggle to break into the housing market. Flynn Charge, 23, and his girlfriend, 22, are living with his girlfriend's mother in an effort to save money so they can buy a house. They're both studying health-related degrees, him a post-graduate course and her an undergraduate degree, but also work casual jobs.
They shop around to get the best deal on groceries, fill their cars up with petrol when it's cheap and buy bulk food and freeze meals in order to save money. But Mr Charge said with a rise in the cost of living and ever-growing house prices, it feels like they're taking "two steps forward, one step back". "If we had to rent we wouldn't be able to save anything.
Even living here and trying to save, it's just getting further and further out of reach," Mr Charge said. "Interest rates are still very high and the way the house prices are just going up, we're left to the scenario where it seems unreasonable that we would be able to buy in the next three to five years. "Even if we did buy, it would probably end up being somewhere that was quite a way away from our family and where our social and personal lives are.
" He said their grocery bill had risen by $70 to $100 a week over the past few years with inflation. "The big things that really stop us from saving are those everyday expenses like groceries, fuel," Mr Charge said. "Then obviously you've got your big bills like car insurance.
All those things just seem to be getting more and more expensive. "It just seems like that gap between what we're earning and what everything costs is growing bigger and bigger." Soul Hub general manager Matt Ortiger said the community-funded charity had seen a 38 per cent increase in people seeking support in the last 12 months.
"Since the start of the year, we've seen a real spike in the observable stress of people walking through the door, people are very unsettled," he said. "All the basic costs are up, which has a compounding factor." Southlakes Incorporated, which runs a food bank and provides emergency hampers, said it had seen a 70 per cent increase in the number of people accessing its food services over the past six months.
Christine Mastello, Southlakes' founder, said of the 80 people who come to eat a free meal on Monday nights, 50 would be from families. "And they say to us it's the only meat their children eat that week," she said. The Samaritans emergency relief services has seen a 13 per cent increase in the past year across the organisation's six Hunter and Central Coast locations, with people seeking support for electricity payments, food vouchers, and rent assistance.
"We have also seen an increase to the number of people in the mid-aged (30- to 50-year-old) demographics accessing services," Samaritans community services manager Jo Eddie said. "Many of the people we see in this demographic are in paid employment and are still struggling with the cost-of-living pressures." Both sides of politics have pitched cost-of-living policies.
Labor has promised a modest tax cut, a $150 energy bill rebate and a three-day-a-week childcare guarantee . Opposition leader Peter Dutton says a Liberal government will halve the fuel excise, saving the average motorist about $14 a week at the bowser. Mr Dutton also promised to give $50 million to help food charities, such as Foodbank and OzHarvest, expand their services and include school breakfast programs.
Sage Swinton is a news reporter who was born and bred in the Hunter. She has been with the Newcastle Herald since June 2020. Sage Swinton is a news reporter who was born and bred in the Hunter.
She has been with the Newcastle Herald since June 2020. Newcastle Herald news director. Former Tamworth concrete cowboy and Parliament House press gallery hack.
Interested in any and all yarns.Whisper g'day mate to me at jamieson.murphy@newcastleherald.
com.au Newcastle Herald news director. Former Tamworth concrete cowboy and Parliament House press gallery hack.
Interested in any and all yarns.Whisper g'day mate to me at jamieson.murphy@newcastleherald.
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