If you don’t have enough money for bills or necessities, what are your options?<\/a><\/p>\nIf you\u2019ve got an unexpected bill to pay or large expense and you don\u2019t have the money to cover it, here\u2019s what you can do.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They can help people in debt to develop plans, access grants, negotiate with creditors and access dispute resolution services.<\/p>\n
While they can help people struggling with finances, they cannot charge any fees or receive any payments from third parties for their services.<\/p>\n
Mr Gantley said there were different reasons why people sought help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It might be utility debt, it might be credit card debt, buy now pay later debt, home loan pressures, potential repossession of assets, rental arrears,” he said.<\/p>\n
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Peter Gantley says there are many reasons why people seek help with their finances. (ABC News: Daniel Taylor)<\/p>\n
“People generally come to us because that pressure is taking its toll, and it’s my role to help people to work through those pressures.<\/p>\n
“Financial pressure can be terrible, it can be really debilitating.”‘Unprecedented’ demand<\/p>\n
More than 183,000 people sought help from the National Debt Helpline in 2025\u201326, which is a free service that can be accessed via the phone or through an online live chat.<\/p>\n
Financial hardship resources:<\/p>\n
Vicki Staff, coordinator of the helpline, said that number was a 9 per cent increase on the year before, and the biggest year to date.<\/p>\n
“We have definitely seen in the last six months, in particular, that the National Debt Helpline has seen unprecedented demand,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve seen in our chat service that we’re experiencing demand upwards of 50 per cent on any previous period.<\/p>\n
“Our phones are averaging 10 to 15 per cent month on month [increase] so far this calendar year.”<\/p>\n
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Vicki Staff says the National Debt Helpline has seen unprecedented demand, especially in the past six months. (ABC News: Liz Pickering)<\/p>\n
Ms Staff said the number of employed people accessing the service was a surprise.<\/p>\n
“Roughly 40 per cent of people who are contacting us are either full-time or part-time employed,” she said.<\/p>\n
“What that’s telling us is employment is no longer the financial security that it used to be.”<\/p>\n
Ms Staff said there was a spike in people accessing the helpline when the Iran war started.<\/p>\n
“A lot of that, we think, had to do with the spike in petrol and diesel prices,” she said.<\/p>\n
“People were perhaps holding on, making ends meet, but didn’t have any kind of backup, or safety net.<\/p>\n
“So when the price of petrol or diesel spiked, that flowed through the economy and we saw increases in everyday costs such as groceries; that was when we really saw a massive leap in demand for our service.”<\/p>\n
Both Ms Staff and Mr Gantley had a take-home message for anyone struggling with their finances: You do not have to do it alone.<\/p>\n
“Everyone has noticed how much more expensive it is to live these days,” Ms Staff said.<\/p>\n
“Help is available, it’s free, it’s confidential, and it’s non-judgemental.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A record number of people are seeking assistance from the National Debt Helpline, with a coordinator saying being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,13110,178663,178664,408691,25404,408689,408687,408688,408690],"class_list":["post-836591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-debt","tag-financial-counselling","tag-financial-counsellor","tag-financial-help","tag-financial-support","tag-national-debt-helpline","tag-peter-gantley","tag-uniting-care-wesley-bowden","tag-vicki-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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