Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be speaking on this Matter of Public Importance, which is the urgent need for the government to back down on its cuts to pensions. I was particularly interested to hear the series of untruths by the minister for more than 10 minutes. It was just quite astounding. I would challenge him to come to my electorate of Richmond and speak to the more than 20,000 pensioners to tell them that rubbish that he spouted here. It was just unbelievable.

The fact is that they are cutting pensions and it is hurting people. I can see the minister is walking out now. I challenge him to come to my electorate. I daresay he would not do that and tell them the sort of rubbish that he was just spruiking in here. The fact is that this government's unfair budget and cruel cuts have been devastating to the nation and to older Australians, particularly those older Australians in regional areas like my electorate of Richmond.

All we see from this government is chaos and constant mismanagement and conflicting narratives and sometimes backflips—just total chaos. All we get are bad decisions from a bad government, and one of the worst decisions is the cuts to pensions for our older Australians. I am calling on the government to back down and reverse those cruel cuts.

Locals in my area have every right to feel betrayed by this government in regional areas, and, of course, they are particularly feeling betrayed by the National Party. The Liberal-National government continues to relentlessly attack the standard of living of older Australians by cutting their pensions and slashing services, particularly health services, and by increasing taxes, like the petrol tax.

Before the election, the Prime Minister promised there would be no change to pensions. He said on SBS News on 6 September 2013: 'No cuts to education. No cuts to health. No change to pensions. No changes to the GST. No cuts to the ABC or SBS.' In my area, all the National Party candidates were running around saying 'no cuts to pensions'. We now know that the Prime Minister's promises stand for nothing. In regional Australia the National Party promises stand for nothing. They cannot be trusted.

What happened of course in their very first budget is that this government launched this unprecedented attack upon the pension. They had cuts to pension indexation, cuts to pensioner concessions, cuts to the deeming thresholds for part pensioners—and increasing the retirement age to 70. So we are calling on the government to drop these cruel cuts. Pensioners never voted for a cut to their pension.

In my electorate there are 20,520 people on the age pension who had their pension cut by this cruel government. The fact is that they never voted for these cuts to indexation to leave them $80 a week worse off. They never voted for any of these cruel cuts. Make no mistake; Labor will fight these changes every day until the next federal election; every single day we will fight them.

This Saturday at the New South Wales election, pensioners on the North Coast in my electorate will have a chance to tell the National Party that they never voted for this cut to their pension. They have a chance to send them a message. They should put the National Party last and send a strong message about their pension cuts. I am urging them to do that.

They should also send a message that they do not want their electricity networks privatised and their electricity bills going up, which is exactly what will happen if the National Party get their way and sell off TransGrid. TransGrid is the distribution network that carries electricity through regional New South Wales through the North Coast of New South Wales.

I was surprised that just today in Tweed Heads the National Party have been caught out telling lies. The state National Party MP for Tweed, Geoff Provest, was out at prepoll handing out a form which said:

Our Poles and Wires will remain 100% publicly owned.

He was caught out telling lies. The fact is that the Nationals are selling off the electricity network which includes TransGrid. And, as I have said, TransGrid distributes electricity throughout regional New South Wales. So the fact is that you just cannot trust the National Party. There they are, out there peddling these lies. As I said: send the National Party a message; number every box, and put the National Party last. Putting up electricity prices is another cruel attack on our pensioners.

As I have said, one of the cruellest measures in the last budget was the cuts to age pensions. It really was devastating to people in regional areas—and that was on top of the other broken promises by this government, particularly their cuts to health. It is only Labor that supports our pensioners and older Australians. In 2009 we implemented the largest increase in the pension in 100 years, and that included a $70 per fortnight increase to the base rate of the pension. We listened to the community and we made sure that increase was in place.

Yet, from this government, all we get are cruel cuts and broken promises. Can I tell you that, for those more than 20,000 pensioners in my electorate, these pension cuts are devastating. These people are living week to week; they have the pension cuts, the cuts to their health and hospital services; they have increased taxes, like the petrol tax; and now, potentially, they have increases in their electricity because of the Liberal-National state government.

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