Thousands of people on the southern Gold Coast are amongst 3.8 million people nationally to benefit from a one-off payment of up to $75 to help with energy costs.
The Energy Assistance Payment will be provided to people on the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension and Parenting Payment Single as well as Veterans and their partners who receive the Service Pension, Income Support Supplement and relevant compensation payments.
26,578 people in McPherson will benefit from this measure including:
• 18,669 recipients of the Age Pension
• 4,050 recipients of the Disability Support Pension and
• 1,553 recipients of Parenting Payment Single.
• 2,306 recipients of veteran’s payments.
Federal Member for McPherson, Karen Andrews, said the one-off payment is $75 for singles and $62.50 for each pensioner in a couple and will be automatically paid to eligible recipients over the next two weeks.
“This one-off payment was part of a sensible and reasonable package to secure significant reform through the Senate to reduce company tax rates to businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million,” Mrs Andrews said.
“In securing the passage of the company tax cuts, which help more than 3.2 million small and medium sized businesses employing 6.5 million people, invest more, employ extra staff and pay higher wages, the Government also committed to these one-off payments.”
The payment will not be taxed, will not be treated as income for tax purposes and does not count as income for social security purposes.
Further information is available at: www.humanservices.gov.au/energyassist
In addition, about 660 part-pensioners in McPherson will have their Pensioner Concession Card reinstated.
“Some former part-pensioners lost access to some state/territory government, local government and private sector benefits as a consequence of losing their Pensioner Concession Card as a result of sensible reforms to the pension assets test which commenced at the start of this year,” Karen Andrews said.
“I’m delighted that these people will have their card reinstated and be able to continue to access the same benefits they previously had through the Pensioner Concession Card.”
The Pensioner Concession Card will be automatically provided to eligible former part-pensioners in October.
