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Speaker 1: We know that many Australians are facing rising costs of living,

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Speaker 1: but Territorians are being hit especially hard. A recent report

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Speaker 1: highlighting that people in the Northern Territory are facing some

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Speaker 1: of the highest cost of living pressures in the country

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Speaker 1: with steep rises in rent. We know that there's always

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Speaker 1: those rises in groceries, utilities and other essentials. Now joining

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Speaker 1: me in the studio to talk a little more about

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Speaker 1: this ant cost CEO Sally Sievers. Good morning to you, Sally, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: good morning Katie, Thanks so much for your time this morning. Now,

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Speaker 1: just how tough are Territorians doing it at the moment?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, So we do what are called cost of

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Speaker 2: living analysis every six months across the NT and so

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Speaker 2: this week for Anti Poverty Week, we focused on housing,

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Speaker 2: transport and electricity costs and so it's really clear that

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Speaker 2: in the NT, yes, there's a really big cost of

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Speaker 2: living pressures, but in fact that for people who are

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Speaker 2: on fixed and low incomes, it's just extreme and they're

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Speaker 2: bearing the burden of what's happening in that space.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit more about the housing

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Speaker 1: and you know just how expensive it is for people

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Speaker 1: when it comes to housing, but also the impact. I

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Speaker 1: suppose that a shortage of housing has yeah.

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Speaker 2: No, So so two aspects there. One is that unlike

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Speaker 2: the rest of Australia, we have many more people renting,

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Speaker 2: So about half of the Northern Territory population will rent,

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Speaker 2: and so that's one significant difference. And as you said,

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Speaker 2: we're the second highest rent in Australia, just after New

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Speaker 2: South Wales, which is phenomenal. That's wild.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, small jurisdiction like the Northern Territory.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so some of the stories and the analysis

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Speaker 2: that have been made is just how few places would

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Speaker 2: be affordable safe for pensioners or people on other income supports.

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Speaker 2: And so even on the way here, I just ran

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Speaker 2: into Sushira from and she gave some context to the

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Speaker 2: data that's in this report that in fact, actually there

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Speaker 2: isn't a one bedroom unit across the whole of the

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Speaker 2: Northern Territory that a pensioner on the pension would be

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Speaker 2: able to afford without being in housing stress. And so

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Speaker 2: housing stress means when you pay more than thirty percent

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Speaker 2: of your income on housing. So a pensioner in Alice

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Speaker 2: Springs would pay something like forty six percent of their

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Speaker 2: income and then have something like about two hundred and

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Speaker 2: eighty dollars left a week for everything else.

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Speaker 1: So pretty much strame feel pretty sad because then I think, well,

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Speaker 1: then people are going without in other ways, right like

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Speaker 1: then you're having a cut cost on things like food,

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Speaker 1: non near electricity and other other things.

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Speaker 2: Or so, just to link into your earlier story about

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Speaker 2: the heat wave today, imagine that you're a pensioner and

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Speaker 2: you're outing which other suburban Darwin or in Central Australia,

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Speaker 2: and you're trying to deal with the heat of today,

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Speaker 2: and you know that if you put that air conditioner on,

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Speaker 2: what the implications will be for your electricity bill. And

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Speaker 2: we know in that electricity space that you know that

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Speaker 2: in T's electricity tariffs are going up and so we

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Speaker 2: will feel that impact. There is some still some commonwealth

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Speaker 2: benefits that are ameliorating that, but the tariff for power

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Speaker 2: in the Northern Territory is increasing.

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Speaker 1: And I mean you touched on some of these drivers,

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Speaker 1: but through the work that you've done, what are the

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Speaker 1: key drivers behind the disproportionately high costs that territory in space?

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Speaker 2: So in relation to the housing market, we actually don't

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Speaker 2: have enough supply of social and affordable housing and so

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Speaker 2: that's you know, why people have to go to and

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Speaker 2: work in the in the private rental market. And so

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Speaker 2: we actually know that there are something like five and

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Speaker 2: a half thousand people on the waiting list. The waiting

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Speaker 2: list means that people wait ten years. And you know,

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Speaker 2: the story that's set out in the Cost of Living

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Speaker 2: is that you know, you might apply for social housing

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Speaker 2: when your childs are toddler, but you are unlikely to

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Speaker 2: get into social housing until your child is entering high school.

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Speaker 2: So there are one hundred and seventy so there's yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's twenty eight people applying for each of the houses

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Speaker 2: which are currently available in that space. So we need

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Speaker 2: more stock, more stock in the social and affordable housing space.

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Speaker 2: And then you know, obviously in the rental space there

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Speaker 2: can be some reforms to the Residential Tenancy Act, which

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Speaker 2: actually you know, for the rest of Australia you're only

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Speaker 2: allowed to put the rent up every twelve months. In

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Speaker 2: the Northern Territory it's still every six months. So how

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Speaker 2: as a family do you plan for those increases if

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Speaker 2: they're every six months, whereas you've got a much better

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Speaker 2: chance of planning for increases if they're every twelve months.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the social housing wait list, I mean

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Speaker 1: I've been on the anti government website, oh did it

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Speaker 1: about two weeks ago, just to give our listeners some content.

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Speaker 1: Those wait times are absolutely astronomical.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And so it's about actually, you know, doing things

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Speaker 2: like having when there's land releases, having a percentage of

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Speaker 2: that land and when there's a development set aside for

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Speaker 2: social and affordable housing. And so it's an in t

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Speaker 2: shelter idea that there's zones and protected zones and so

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Speaker 2: that when you do a development, you actually commit to

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Speaker 2: having that space available, so that in fact, actually we're

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Speaker 2: working towards having enough social and affordable housing.

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Speaker 1: Sally, what are some of the stories that you hear

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Speaker 1: from people living in the Northern Territory, you know, some

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Speaker 1: of those lived experiences I guess behind the numbers because

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Speaker 1: for a lot of us, you know, if we're in

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Speaker 1: a potentially if we're in the fortunate position of having

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Speaker 1: our own home or you know, being able to pay

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Speaker 1: our bills each month, we may not really have that context.

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Speaker 1: So what are some of those lived experiences that you

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Speaker 1: really hear about?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So one that I'm not sure whether your listeners

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Speaker 2: are aware of, but lots of houses in the non territories,

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Speaker 2: so in remote communities, but also in public housing in

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Speaker 2: urban settings, those families are on what are called prepaid

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Speaker 2: meters and so what happens for those people is frequently

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Speaker 2: there's not enough money on the card and the power

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Speaker 2: runs out. And so the statistics from last time is

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Speaker 2: there something like seventy nine thousand involuntary disconnections for people.

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Speaker 2: So you imagine you're in Darwin today and your power

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Speaker 2: card runs out. What happens to the food that's in

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Speaker 2: the fridge, what happens to your medications that need to

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Speaker 2: be refrigerated. If you've got children, what about you know,

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Speaker 2: where are they going to sleep comfortably so they can

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Speaker 2: hop up to go to school tomorrow? And so similarly

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Speaker 2: you know that that in Alice Springs with those prepaid meters,

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Speaker 2: we know that the average disconnection time is eleven and

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Speaker 2: a half hour, so people are without power. Can you

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Speaker 2: imagine what that would mean for the food that's in

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Speaker 2: your fridge, what it will mean for medications? You know,

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Speaker 2: you know, if the children are having to do homework,

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Speaker 2: there's no access to Wi Fi or to charge your

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Speaker 2: mobile phone or to participate in the community. That's that's

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Speaker 2: the most extreme sort of version that happens in the

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Speaker 2: Northern Territory. And it's very different from the situation that

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Speaker 2: you and I and are the pensions might be in

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Speaker 2: where we get the bill and then we can apply

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Speaker 2: to power and water for hardship provisions to pay off

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Speaker 2: that debt or have other things put in place. But

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Speaker 2: people who are on those prepaid meters, they don't get

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Speaker 2: access to any of that, and they pay a higher

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Speaker 2: tariff for their power.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Right, that's really interesting, you know, in something I

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Speaker 1: guess that, like you said, a lot of people would

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Speaker 1: not be aware of, in terms of, you know, what

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Speaker 1: we can do to try to you know, I guess

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Speaker 1: to try and make some inroads in this space. Are

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Speaker 1: there you know, are there different levers that can be

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Speaker 1: locally or federally to try and make some in roads here. Yes.

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Speaker 2: So in the fact sheets that we've put out and

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Speaker 2: they're on Anti Costs website, we always put the solutions.

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Speaker 2: It's sort of like my approach to social justice in

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Speaker 2: the Northern Territory journally, don't raise a problem unless you

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Speaker 2: can come up with it. And so in that space

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Speaker 2: about people having more income. You know, the typical one

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Speaker 2: is at the federal level just raising the rate. So

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Speaker 2: what we would all agree, Katie and all your listeners

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Speaker 2: would agree is that every territory and should be able

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Speaker 2: to afford the basics and on the current sort of

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Speaker 2: income support, particularly job seeker and youth allowance, people just

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Speaker 2: cannot afford the basics. And so that's a federal ask.

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Speaker 2: At a local ask, we're asking for things like the

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Speaker 2: Concession scheme which operates to be extended out to people

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Speaker 2: who are on other income support payments and that to hurt.

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Speaker 2: But also when you're building this social and community housing,

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Speaker 2: to build it to the best and so that it's

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Speaker 2: situated on the block so it gets the breeze, so

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Speaker 2: that it has good insulation, double glazing for the glass,

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Speaker 2: maybe it has solar on the top, so that people

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Speaker 2: actually aren't incurring those really high electricity costs. So you know, obviously,

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Speaker 2: with anything, prevention is better than having to deal with

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Speaker 2: the power costs down the track. So if we build

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Speaker 2: our social and affordable housing to a really high you know,

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Speaker 2: to the actual national standard it's a six star rating,

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Speaker 2: then you know, people who are in public and social

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Speaker 2: housing wouldn't incur those you know, extreme costs in a

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Speaker 2: concrete box.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes it very hot, doesn't it. You know,

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Speaker 1: and then you, like you said, you know, then your

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Speaker 1: electricity bills going up higher or certainly are you using

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Speaker 1: more electricity which is having an impact? Look, I think

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Speaker 1: it's it's a discussion that always needs to be had.

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate you joining me in the studio this morning.

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Speaker 1: Sally Sever's CEO of NT Costs. Thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for your time. But if anybody listening this morning is

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Speaker 1: after that bit further info, they can go to the

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Speaker 1: NT Costs website.

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Speaker 2: Can't and the fact sheets are there and they've got

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Speaker 2: lovely graphs, a fantastic yeah, thank you, good stuff. Thank you,