Cost-of-living pressures rising in Gladstone despite local gas industry 'super profits', Senate inquiry hears

Connie Fredericks from a local soup kitchen helps feed up to 70 people every Monday night. (ABC Capricornia: Frazer Pearce)

Lorna McGinnis can measure the growing desperation of poverty-stricken people in her community by the lengthening queues outside the city’s emergency food services.

The Gladstone Region Engaging in Action Together executive director said more and more people were struggling to find the essential support they needed, on a daily basis, to provide for their families and children in Central Queensland.

“The ways we’re seeing that play out [are], for example, this morning as I drove here, there’s a queue outside our food centre. That queue has increased and it’s also forming earlier in the morning,” Ms McGinnis said.

“We’re seeing an increase in homelessness. We’re seeing families live in cars, or having to live in overcrowding situations, in existing rentals with friends or family, in order to be able to stay here where they may have found work.”

Ms McGinnis was giving evidence at this week’s public hearings for the federal Senate Committee on the Cost of Living inquiry.

The committee, which was established in September 2022, had been due to report last November but was extended to May this year, with the Gladstone public hearing the only one held in regional Queensland.

Which bridge will they sleep under?

Ms McGinnis presented a picture of a financially stressed underclass in a city boasting multi-billion dollar profits from big industry operators.

The committee’s deputy chairperson Senator Penny Allman-Payne said it was “shocking” to see a city like Gladstone producing massive wealth while harbouring some of the highest levels of need in the country.

“Just across the water here we have gas companies, who the year before made $40 billion in sales, super profits,” she said.

The Gladstone region, approximately 500 kilometres north of Brisbane, is home to about 63,500 people and has one of the largest bulk commodity ports in the world.

The city’s regional council has an ambitious plan to transform the industrial centre into a renewable energy hub with massive investments and new jobs forecast.

Ms McGinnis said there was a steady stream of people heading to the region seeking employment but the rental and housing markets were extremely tight and mostly unaffordable.

At St Saviors Anglican Church, just a few kilometres from the Senate hearing, Connie Fredericks was busy preparing food for Ray’s Soup Kitchen to feed up to 70 needy people who gathered there every Monday night.

The Anglican parish’s operations manager says soup kitchen volunteers regularly talk to people about “what bridge they will sleep under tonight”.

“The need in this town is really big. It’s huge,” Ms Fredericks said.

“People are sleeping in cars, in vans and they need more help and it’s across the board — young and old, families and singles.

“What we are aiming to do here is to provide people with a bit of dignity.”

More middle income people seeking help

Gladstone Regional Council Mayor Matt Burnett told the senate committee hearing about 36.5 per cent of the region’s housing was defined as unaffordable — costing more than 30 per cent of the household income.

He said singles were particularly disadvantaged because there was no crisis support service available for them.

He said there was more than 380 people on the social housing waitlist, with First Nation’s people making up 40 per cent.

At the Salvation Army’s facility at Philip Street Communities and Families Precinct, manager Captain Chris Ford said the number of new people seeking help every week had doubled to as many as 140 between December and January.

“We’re expecting the increase to continue,” he said.

“Quite simply, those who are already doing it tough are doing it tougher. However, what we’re seeing a lot more of now, is more of your lower middle income people beginning to really struggle.

“We have got people presenting now who have never had help before and that creates a whole range of issues.

“They’re scared, they don’t know where to turn, they’re worried about how they’re going to live tomorrow. Where’s the food going to come from?”

He said a lot of people they saw were nearly “bordering on trauma” as they came in “because of the circumstances they’re finding themselves in”.

Councils seek fairer share of funding

Cr Burnett, who is also vice president of the Australian Local Government Association, said the greatest need was for the Commonwealth to increase the Financial Assistance Grants for councils from 0.5 per cent of total taxation revenue to 1 per cent.

“You increase financial assistance grants to councils across the country to 1 per cent and they can deliver the services and infrastructure that communities need right on the ground,” he said.

“Councillors across the country shouldn’t be fighting each other for funding; the funding should increase.

“You get an allocation based on your population and your road network.”

He said a cost-shifting report showed councils across Queensland were in receipt of about 3 per cent of total public sector tax receipts but managed 80 per cent of the nation’s infrastructure.

“That’s a huge cost, and over the last two decades we’ve continuously seen less funding as part of the total pie coming from state and federal governments,” Cr Burnett said.

He said the council was forced to spend millions of dollars on providing services that should be funded by governments.

“That’s putting more pressure and a greater burden on regional communities, but absolutely, council is a constant balance of where we want to assist and provide funding where we can, and working collaboratively with state and federal governments to get good outcomes for our community because that’s what we’re all trying to achieve,” Cr Burnett said.