Latest news with #MorganCox
News.com.au
21-04-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
‘It's just about numbers': Aussie dad facing homelessness pleads for immigration pause
He's the Aussie dad who sparked a national conversation. But Morgan Cox says politicians still aren't listening. Mr Cox, 42, an electrical installer who lives in Gosford on the NSW Central Coast with his partner and three young children, recently received a 'crushing' rent increase notice of more than 40 per cent. Their small two-bedroom apartment will go from $410 to $590 per week - an extra $9360 a year. Earning $70,000 and already working two jobs, Mr Cox has no way of finding the extra cash. 'Where can you get $10,000 from every year?' Mr Cox asked 'I'm earning what a couple of years ago was pretty decent money. I'm not poor - well, I haven't been poor until recently. And it turns out there are literally millions of people in the same boat.' After the initial shock, Mr Cox said the experience of looking for new rentals was equally jarring. 'There is hardly anything available in my price range at all, and what there is the line-up is maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 people, many of them immigrants,' he said. 'I'd have no chance competing against them.' Last month, Mr Cox appeared on the ABC's QandA where he pleaded with the government to cut immigration before 'every regular working Australian is homeless'. A clip of his question — and his exasperated reaction to the panel's response — racked up millions of views online and triggered debate about the impact of immigration on housing. Mr Cox said after he went viral, he got 'some support', while others online branded him a 'racist' and a 'Liberal plant'. 'It has nothing to do with race and it has nothing to do with politics,' he said. 'It's just about numbers — the number of people and the number of homes. That was pretty upsetting, to just stand up and say something I thought was just common sense mathematics.' Mr Cox was left shaking his head in 'disbelief' and 'frustration' listening to the ABC panellists describe the situation as 'complex'. 'The government's job is to manage the country,' he said. 'It doesn't seem all that complicated to me - surely they know there's this many houses and only this many people can fit in them, basic stuff like that, and they should be able to set limits. I don't understand why it's so difficult for them.' A recent study estimated more than three million Australians were at risk of homelessness, a 63 per cent increase since 2016, coinciding with a sharp increase in rental stress. Nearly 280,100 people were assisted by specialist homelessness agencies in 2023-24, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). 'It's elderly people, even working families like my own living in tents,' Mr Cox said. 'There's two vans parked in my street that are homeless, there are people living in their cars at the shopping centre. If we've already got 300,000 people on the street, it just seems terribly unfair to be bringing in 200,000 students when we've got vulnerable women living in cars. It's just abhorrent to me. I don't understand why they would allow it.' On the campaign trail, Mr Cox said, people were 'literally shouting' at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese but 'it's like wilful ignorance'. 'I'm not blaming [the international students],' Mr Cox said. 'To be 100 per cent clear, I'm blaming the government. My partner is an immigrant. I'm not against immigration at all. I just don't want my family, my one-year-old, to be homeless and I don't want millions of other people to be homeless either.' For now, Mr Cox is still negotiating for a reprieve on his rent increase. Short of that, he is 'between a rock and a hard place'. 'There's no way I can buy — you need something like $300,000 a year now to buy an average house,' he said. Mr Cox, who already relocated from western Sydney to the Central Coast due to rising costs, said he was stunned at the rapid change in the country. 'Five years ago, everything was OK,' he said. 'We could occasionally go on holidays, occasionally buy the more expensive brands of foods. Now I'm in poverty, by definition. I just can't believe it.' The struggling father found himself in the headlines again this week after pitching a tent outside Mr Albanese's clifftop mansion on the NSW Central Coast. 'I'm here at Albo's $4.5 (sic) million mansion, we've just turned down his $100million road, we're here on behalf of 3.5 million Australians who are struggling, who are in poverty, facing homelessness,' Mr Cox said in a clip shared to X. 'All we want is to be heard, all we want is for politicians to listen to us. 'Everyone deserves a home Albo.' If he could speak to the Immigration Minister, Mr Cox said 'I would like to walk around the streets with him'. 'Talk to some of the women living in tents, some of the families living in vans with kids,' he said. 'I'd like to show him what it's really like.'
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Emotional dad calls out key issue after $9,360 ask forces family out of Sydney: ‘More money than I can get'
An Australian dad struggling to keep up with the rising cost of rent has pleaded with the government to do something about the housing crisis. Morgan Cox has just been hit with a $180 per week increase in his rent, which works out to be $9,360 per year. His increasing weekly rent has even forced him to move out of Sydney for a cheaper life, but that still hasn't given much reprieve. He wants something done now to ensure he and his family don't end up on the street. "I tried to find a cheaper place and there just aren't any with what little is available," he said on the ABC's QandA programme. Landlords put on notice over $8,884 move hurting everyday Aussies: 'Era is over' Surprise winner after Woolworths and Aldi comparison grocery shop: 'More expensive' 'Red flag' NAB banker noticed before blocking $440,000 payment: 'Didn't add up' "There's dozens of people lined up. Lots of them are immigrants, and they have plenty more money than I can possibly get. "One more rent increase and my family, my one-year-old baby, we're facing homelessness, and we've got nowhere to go. "Is the government going to cut immigration to match housing availability, or are we just going to keep going until every regular working Australian is homeless?" Cox said he's already working two jobs to make ends meet, but it's still difficult to find any financial breathing Health Minister Mark Butler was the first to respond to the dad's desperate plea and said the solution to his problem was simple, but hard at the same time. "We do want to see those migration numbers get back to something like normal for Australia," he said. "We also know that migration has been an important part of keeping our economy going... we also have a very tight labour market with lots of skill shortages. "So it is a fine balance [that] governments of all political persuasions always have to try to strike. "But we need more houses... like we just need to get building more houses." There was a record overseas migration intake in 2022-23, with 528,000 people coming into Australia, according to Treasury figures. But Treasury forecast that number to plummet to 260,000 for the 2024-25 year, and hover around the 235,000 per annum mark after that. The government announced last year that the permanent migration program would be capped at 185,000 places in 2024-25 and that $18.3 million would be invested to reform the country's immigration system to 'drive greater economic prosperity and restore its integrity'. Former NSW Treasurer Matt Kean said fixing housing supply will come by addressing the way we build. "A lever that [governments] could pull is making it easier in our planning system to get stuff built," he said. "Because there's way too much red tape and green tape that is stopping housing developments, whether it be Sydney, Melbourne or right across Australia." Veteran builder Scott Challen has previously told Yahoo Finance that regulatory approvals have crippled the building and construction industry because it's causing projects to take far longer than normal. 'This is the biggest, biggest, biggest anchor that's hanging off the building industry at the moment. We literally cannot get anything approved," he said. "We've created so much regulation and legislation around getting anything approved through our local councils that the industry is pretty much gridlocked. 'So, it wouldn't matter if we wanted to build it, we can't build it.' He claimed to have jobs on the books that have been stuck in the approvals process for a year. 'You can imagine what the price was 12 months ago compared to now, riding the wave of shortage with that as well,' he said. 'It's a perfect storm. A lot of these companies might just haven't had the cash flow to be able to move forward because they can't build anything anyway.' Fixing supply and addressing red tape will likely take years, which will do little for Cox and others like him, who admitted that every day is a struggle. Recent PropTrack figures revealed that rental affordability is the worst it's been in nearly 20 years. A household earning a median income of $116,000 could only afford 36 per cent of the advertised rental properties between July to December last year. Lower-income households earning $70,000 could only afford just 2 per cent of homes. 'The current alarming state of rental affordability is a substantial deterioration from conditions before and during the pandemic,' PropTrack senior economist and report author Angus Moore said. 'For lower-income households, renting is essentially impossible. 'This highlights just how crucial Commonwealth Rent Assistance and community housing is for lower-income Australian households.' PropTrack found NSW was the most unaffordable state to rent in, followed by South Australia and Tasmania, with Victoria the in to access your portfolio
NBC Sports
10-03-2025
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Titans bring back LS Morgan Cox
The Titans have agreed to terms on a new one-year contract with long snapper Morgan Cox, the team announced Monday. Cox, a five-time Pro Bowler, joined the Titans in 2021 after spending his first 11 NFL seasons with the Ravens. He earned one of his Pro Bowls with the Titans in 2022. In 2024, Cox was a finalist for the Bart Starr Award, which honors those who exhibit outstanding character, integrity and leadership on and off the football field. The 15-year veteran has appeared in 233 career regular-season games and 11 postseason contests. In 2024, Cox appeared in every game and handled all of the team's long snapping duties for the fourth consecutive year. He helped kicker Nick Folk post a 95.5 percent accuracy on field goals, which led the NFL in 2024, and he assisted Ryan Stonehouse in averaging 50.6 yards per punt, which ranked third in the NFL in 2024. Cox's five career Pro Bowls (2015, 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2022) are more than any other player at his position since the league began naming long snappers to the Pro Bowl in 2004. The Titans have a new special teams coordinator in John Fassel, who left Dallas for Tennessee in January.
USA Today
10-03-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Tennessee Titans extend LS Morgan Cox with one-year $1.422M contract
Tennessee Titans extend LS Morgan Cox with one-year $1.422M contract #Titans one-year extension for Morgan Cox: $1.422 million, $167,500 signing bonus, salary $1.255M; veteran minimum salary benefit — Aaron Wilson (@AaronWilson_NFL) March 10, 2025 The Tennessee Titans started the legal tampering period by signing one of their own free agents on Monday. The Titans have come to terms with long snapper Morgan Cox on a one-year contract worth $1.4225M including a $167.5K guaranteed signing bonus, keeping him in Nashville through the 2025 season. Cox, who joined the Titans in 2021, is a five-time Pro Bowler and was one of the few bright spots on special teams this past season. A 15-year veteran, Cox has played in 233 career regular season games, and 11 postseason contests with the Titans and Baltimore Ravens. He was named a Pro Bowler with the Titans in 2022. His 233 career games rank third in the NFL among all active long snappers, trailing only Carolina's J.J. Jansen (260) and Houston's Jon Weeks (244). Extending Cox was a solid move for the Titans, who have overhauled their special teams coaching staff this offseason in hopes of rebuilding a unit that consistently underperformed in 2024.
