In May, the Federal Government handed down its budget for 2024-2025. This year’s budget contains significant outcomes for workers in our industries and new measures focused on reducing cost of living pressures.

ENERGY BILL RELIEF JULY 2024

All households will have a $300 credit applied to their electricity bills from July 1 2024.
This will be applied quarterly meaning each quarter, $75 will be credited to your account and automatically taken off your power bill.

TAX CUTS – JULY 2024

From July 2024, all taxpayers will receive an automatic saving and have slightly less tax deducted from their pay each pay period.

Week on week, you will have more money to spend and save than before.
This is different to previous tax cuts where workers received a lump sum payment as part of their tax return.
If you earn $45,000 a year, you will receive an extra $15.46 in take-home pay each week.
This equals $804 extra over the financial year.

STUDENT DEBT RELIEF – JULY 2024

If you have a HECS-HELP debts, this will be reduced.

The Federal Government is changing how student debts are indexed each year and backdating this change to July 2023.

The indexation rate on your HECS debt will be lowered from 7.1% to 3.2% and a credit will be applied to your HECS debt to adjust for this difference and the total debt will be lowered.

Going forward, the indexation rate will be calculated off the lower of either the consumer price index (CPI) or the wage price index (WPI), preventing debts from growing faster than your wages.

SUPER ON PAID PARENTAL LEAVE – JULY 2025

From July 2025, superannuation will now be paid on periods of paid parental leave.

This is the result of a strong campaign by the SDA and the union movement to make superannuation fairer for all Australians.

It is a crucial part of closing the superannuation gap and addressing inequities for working women who take time out of the workforce to care for children.

This is on top of the Federal Government’s commitment to increase the amount of paid leave new parents can take under the Commonwealth scheme to 26 weeks by July 2026.

RENTAL ASSIST INCREASE – SEPTEMBER 2024

The payment to people receiving Commonweath Rental Assistance will be increase by 10% from September.
This means the payment will rise by roughly $19 for a single person receiving rent assistance before indexation, bring payments to over $200 a fortnight.