Keep energy payment for poor: advocates

Welfare groups have penned letters to Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten urging them to keep the $4.40 a week energy supplement.

Workers are seen on a high tension electricity pylon — Welfare groups have written to Australia's politicians urging them to keep the energy supplement. (AAP)

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Published 22 August 2016 10:14am

Source: AAP

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Welfare groups have written to Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten calling on them not to scrap the so-called energy supplement, paid to some of Australia's poorest.

The $4.40 a week payment - originally designed as carbon tax compensation - is part of an omnibus bill of savings Labor and the government agree on.

"Whatever the original purpose of the energy supplement, neither Labor nor any other party with a commitment to a decent social safety net could support slashing payments to people living below the poverty line," ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie said on Monday.

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