Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

The budget paper outlines the broad impact of the adjustment to the indexation measure to see it adjusted to the kind of indexation Labor introduced for the family payments arrangement. In no respect, in no way and with no reasonable characterisation is it a cut to anything. What it reflects is an ongoing commitment for a twice-yearly adjustment to our pension rates to give confidence and certainty for those who are reliant upon that income support that it will increase with the cost of living to maintain its buying power into the future. What is crucial about this budget is that it seeks to recognise the importance of the safety net, of the social security system and of the range of programs aimed to properly support the vulnerable, those who have already made their contribution to the economy and those that have particular needs that we as a generous society should be providing for. So in the budget it characterises what the adjustment in the rate of increase will mean in an aggregate sense.

To carry out the analysis that the shadow Treasurer is speaking about, one would need to include all of the ins and outs. I think that the shadow minister would agree that in terms of the average savings to households for the abolition of the carbon tax—something Labor says that it is in favour of terminating but when it comes to this parliament it chooses not to carry through those statements in public—we know that it is on average a $550 benefit to households. We also know that if Labor continues to obstruct the abolition of the carbon tax, the rate of the carbon tax will actually increase at from 1 July.

So what we have done with this measure is not cut pensions. We have adjusted the rate at which the pension will continue to increase twice annually. We have also left in place the so-called compensation that was available when the carbon tax was implemented. That compensation, important in its terms of an increase to these fortnightly payments, remains. Our ambition is not only to take the carbon tax out and therefore reduce those cost-of-living pressures in households of all types, but also to leave the so-called compensation in place.

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