More than $35 million in cost-of-living relief for the parents of school aged children has gone unclaimed with just four days until the program closes – and the Cook Government has ruled out extending the deadline.
The $103 million WA Student Assistance Payment, unveiled shortly before the start of term two, offers families $250 for each child they have in high school and $150 for each child in kindergarten or primary school.
Eligibility is not means tested and there are no conditions attached to how the cash is spent, although the money is intended to go towards school expenses like uniforms, books and stationery.
Premier Roger Cook and Education Minister Tony Buti visited South Coogee Primary on Monday to remind parents they have until midnight on June 28 – the last day of term two – to apply for the payment.
Despite nearly a third of the cash sitting unclaimed, Dr Buti ruled out accepting applications beyond Friday.
“Any money that is left over we’ll be looking at other costs of living relief, so we will have more to say about that in due course,” he said.
The Government has repeatedly refused to provide a school-by-school breakdown of the unclaimed taxpayer-funded payments, batting away requests from both the media and the Opposition.
It is despite that exact information being provided to Labor MPs for their own electorates, which some have used to spruik the measures on their social media or in speeches to Parliament.
“What we are aiming our efforts at is just ensuring families apply for this payment,” Dr Buti said.
“We’re not worrying about competition between schools, (having) a league table about which school is better than another in applying for these benefits.
“In due course we will release data that will show that this has been an outstanding success.”
Dr Buti said he expected around 75 per cent of the available money would be claimed by Friday – leaving nearly $26 million unclaimed – which he said would represent an “absolutely outstanding” result.
When first announced, some parents took to social media to complain about technical difficulties when lodging applications for the payment through the ServiceWA app, which is the Cook Government’s preferred method.
Doing so required downloading and setting up an account with the separate myGovID app, which verifies Australian’s digital identities after they have provided copies of documents like passports or driver’s licences.
Mr Cook on Monday said parents who did not want to use ServiceWA could “just go into the school front desk and fill out the forms” with staff on hand to help.
The scheme was also criticised for handing out cash to wealthy families, with the Premier himself conceding in April his preference would have been to target the payments to those most in need.
“We’d love to be able to say that we’re going to means test this against people’s income statements or people who access family benefit package A or B but we just don’t have that (data),” Mr Cook said at the time.
Dr Buti on Monday insisted the $67 million that has so far “gone into the hands and pockets of West Australian families” proved the program had been a success.