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ONE in five families have struggled to pay their power, gas and phone bills and many have been forced to seek aid from family and friends during the economic crisis.
New Rudd Government research reveals an alarming number of Australians suffered financial pain in the first six months of this year.
The Government yesterday announced plans for a multi-million dollar emergency aid package for the hardest hit.
This will include special emergency relief for homeless people in inner Melbourne and sole parents in the outer suburbs. In total, $12 million will be set aside for the national anti-poverty package.
Families Minister Jenny Macklin said further projects would be identified to help the less well-off.
The survey of 1650 families found 34 per cent considered themselves financially worse off in the six months to June.
More than 20 per cent reported levels of hardship that meant they couldn't pay their electricity, gas and telephone bills, and 15 per cent had to ask for help from family and friends.
Of the families unable to pay their rent or mortgage on time, almost 80 per cent were suffering this way for the first time.
Of those who had gone without food, 70 per cent had not experienced this before.
The survey's release came on the same day Anglicare Australia released its annual State of the Family report.
Anglicare Australia chairman Ray Cleary said that in Victoria there had been a 38 per cent increase in demand for food parcels and crisis accommodation.
Families were under growing pressure because of rising costs.
"These costs continue to rise and these are the same people who may have been fully employed 12 or 18 months ago and are now only working three or four days a week," Dr Cleary said.
The Prime Minister's wife, Therese Rein, who launched the Anglicare report in Canberra yesterday, blamed the global financial crisis on faceless financial industry workers overseas.
"The whiz kids who dreamed up parcelling up debt on the other side of the world, they'll never actually see face-to-face the impact of their decisions, of their products, on people here," she said.
Source: Herald Sun October 13th 2009, John Ferguson
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