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PM’s pension delay remarks ‘cruel’ on aged

By Alison Hiscocks - posted Monday, 6 October 2008


Governments couldn't give people something, and then take it back, Mr Tanner said. He reportedly added there were very complex questions about eligibility entitlements with, for example, the aged care subsidy system built around the pension rate.

This argument would suggest the government is unfamiliar with the concept of an interim payment and a top-up later. Instead we have political gibberish about giving something then taking it back.

It’s insensitive for the Prime Minister and his ministers to blather about doing nothing until the February review as a “rationale and reasonable” approach. They might not think that way if the pension was their sole income.

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Five years ago petrol was 80c a litre. Today it’s at least three times that figure. It’s just one example of the price increases retirees on the single pension have had to cope with.

While the Government had increased the pensioner utilities allowance to $125 a quarter and given retirees a $500 one-off payment as well as the modest CPI increase in their pension, these would be quickly soaked up by bills and the rising cost of living.

Pensioners who own their own homes are being hammered by rates and the pathetic rates discounts offered by councils. Those who rent are struggling to cover their debts and to have any money left over after rents and food bills are paid. Life, for them, has become a day to day endurance.

A significant increase in the pension is overdue, and if the government is going to acknowledge the crisis but delay fixing it, then the least it could do is agree to backdate any eventual pension increase.

Emotions were further heightened in late September when the Rudd Government blocked a Coalition attempt to raise some pensions by $30 a week.

The federal Opposition attempted to introduce legislation to raise the rate of some pensions but Labor used its numbers in the lower house to kill the Bill from the Senate on constitutional grounds because the Senate is not able to originate laws appropriating revenue or monies.

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It got worse. Media reports cited documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws which claim federal Cabinet considered raising the pension by $30 a week during its Budget deliberations.

Apparently Treasury costed several options to help pensioners ahead of the Budget, including making one-off payments of $1,000 to provide assistance while pensions were reviewed. But Treasury warned that if the aged pension were lifted, payments to disability pensioners and carers should also be increased. Cabinet decided to do nothing.

This just makes it worse. The Prime Minister and Deputy and Treasurer all agree pensioners are struggling to survive, yet their own Cabinet rejected an interim rescue measure, all in the name of waiting until February 2009 for the outcome of a bureaucratic review.

This is a human issue, not something to play vote-catching politics with. Lawyers need to be speaking out in support of our retirees. They helped build Australia.

They deserve better in their final years.

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About the Author

Alison Hiscocks is a Gold Coast-based lawyer with a special interest in legal issues affecting the elderly, and an advocate of aged peoples’ rights.

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