Melbourne

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Financially vulnerable Australians stand to miss out on the full value of the budget's $300 energy bill relief, because the policy will slash the indexation of their welfare payments.

The surprising outcome is the result of the government's claim that its energy relief will lower inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), by half a percentage point in 2024-25.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers were asked to explain why they had given $300 to well-paid politicians and even billionaires like Gina Rinehart.

Economists have disputed the significance of that claim this week, since the Reserve Bank does not focus on headline CPI, preferring instead to monitor an 'underlying' measure of inflation which will be unaffected by the policy.

Similar results would be seen in share houses with multiple welfare recipients, since the energy bill relief is paid by household, but the lower indexation affects each individual.

And Cassandra Goldie, chief of welfare advocacy group ACOSS, said it was "extraordinarily wasteful" and accused the government of "cruelly denying people receiving unemployment payments decent income support."

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