Young Aussies to get $768 cash boost

Mr Chalmers this month said the May budget would have three key priorities — cost-of-living relief, growing the economy and ensuring Australia is “more resilient to international shocks”.

“This budget will be handed down in the context of an uncertain and volatile global economy which is precariously placed,” he said after a short visit to Washington DC where he met with global financial leaders.

“The best antidote to global economic uncertainty is responsible economic management here at home and that’s what the May budget will represent. Low unemployment, high prices for our exports … both of those things are helping the budget right now, but the pressures on the budget are intensifying after that.”

Here is what we know so far.

$768 cash boost for young carers

• Young people aged 12 to 25 who are caring for a loved one will get a cash boost so they can continue their education. The nearly $10 million funding increase to Carers Australia’s Young Carer Bursary Program will be increased from $3000 to $3768, and the number of bursaries offered will increase by nearly 60 per cent to around 1600 each year over the period 2023 to 2025.

Cheaper medicines and more scripts

• An estimated six million Australians will be allowed to buy double twice as many common medicines for the price of one script under a shake-up of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The proposal has sparked backlash from the powerful Pharmacy Guild, which fiercely campaigned against the reform and warned it would lead to medicine shortages.

Single parents anxiously waiting

• Single parents with older children hoping to receive more generous financial assistance are on tenterhooks. Australians receiving the single parenting payment, who are predominantly women, are shifted to the less generous Jobseeker payment when their youngest child turns eight and lose about $100 a week as a result. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said on Sunday Labor was yet to decide whether the cut-off age should be returned to 16.

$50 million for Long Covid research

• The Medical Research Future Fund will receive a further $50 million for research into post-acute sequelae of Covid-19 (PASC) — commonly known as Long Covid. The funding was announced after the publication of the final report from parliament’s Long Covid inquiry.

Major action against SMS scammers

• Australia’s plague of SMS scams will be tackled with $10 million to launch the country’s first SMS sender ID registry and help prevent scammers from spoofing industry or government brand names — such as Linkt or myGov — in text message headers. The registry is intended to assist telcos stop scammers from imitating trusted and established brand names through SMS.

$6 million to Good Friday Appeal

• The Good Friday Appeal, which has been fundraising for the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne since 1931, will receive $6 million over three years. The money will “help fund life-changing treatment, world-class research, leadership and training, to attract the brightest minds to help care for kids from Melbourne, Victoria and across Australia”.

Crashes tackled via Black Spot program

• Dangerous crash sites will be improved through the federal government’s Black Spot Program. Safety measures and road upgrades will be funded for 24 locations in Western Australia to the tune of $12.6 million, while Queensland will receive $21.7 million for 38 sites.

EV chargers to tackle ‘range anxiety’

• The federal government’s Driving the Nation Fund will provide $39.3 million to the NRMA, which will match the funds to build 117 fast electric vehicle chargers across Australia’s national highways. The infrastructure will “make it possible to drive from Darwin to Perth, Broken Hill to Adelaide, and Brisbane to Tennant Creek” and help address “range anxiety” — a commonly cited barrier to purchasing electric vehicles.

National cultural institutions ‘revived’

• Australia’s nine major “national collecting institutions” — including the Maritime Museum, Old Parliament House, the National Archives and the Portrait Gallery — will receive $535.3 million over four years to undertake urgent repairs and improvements. Arts Minister Tony Burke said it was “a disgrace that the former Coalition government allowed these institutions to fall into such a shocking state of disrepair”.

Government-funded cadet journalists

• Up to 56 new cadet journalists are hitting the beat in 38 regional newsrooms after being awarded grants through the first round of the $5 million Australian Government Journalist Fund, which was announced in October’s budget. The second round of the fund, which contributes 70 per cent of each two-year, $150,000 package, is now underway.

More cash after cashless welfare axed

• The government has announced an additional $25 million to support former cashless debit card program communities through extending existing services and delivering new initiatives across Ceduna, Bundaberg-Hervey Bay, Goldfields, East Kimberley and the remote Northern Territory.

Great Barrier Reef water quality

• An additional $150 million will be spent to improve the quality of water flowing to the Great Barrier Reef. The funding will support initiatives to protect and restore land in catchments with the largest amount of fine sediment run-off, which can cause higher algal growth, pollutant build-up, and reduce light for corals and seagrass.

Extra flood relief for QLD and WA

• In response to recent flood events in the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Kimberley, an additional $4.4 million will go to 83 emergency and flood relief providers across Queensland and Western Australia to help people access essential items such as food, clothing and petrol.

Auslan, wheelchair boost for workplaces

• To make workplaces more accessible for those with disabilities, the government is raising funding caps for the Employment Assistance Fund (EAF) for the first time in 13 years. The funding cap for Auslan services will double from $6000 to $12,000 annually, while the building modifications cap will also be doubled from $30,000 to $60,000.

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— with NCA NewsWire