Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am concerned that age pensioners are fighting a losing battle and retirees without substantial superannuation or investments are continuing to slip further behind financially. The most alarming consequence of this is worsening health. Many concerns are raised by retirees in Adelaide’s western suburbs, concerns that I am sure are raised around the country, which the federal government could be addressing with their multibillion dollar handouts. Today I would like to advance two recurrent themes that are raised by many and varied people over the age of 65. Firstly, retirees view as unjust current retirement policies which produce an effective marginal tax rate of 40 per cent for single retirees in receipt of some $16,000 per annum. They view a 40 per cent effective marginal tax rate—payable ordinarily by singles earning well over $60,000 per year—being applied to people in their circumstances as almost obscene. The 40 per cent is the rate of withdrawal of the age pension for every dollar that a person ‘earns’ over the exempt amount.

The arguments for the application of a means tests are longstanding, almost eternal, within Australia. Such tests have been applied in one form or another since the first age pension was introduced. People expect policies to change over time, subject to different circumstances, attitudes, needs and the economic fortunes of the country. People have seen business tax reduced from 36 to 30 per cent in order to elicit a particular response from the business community. Superannuation taxes have been moulded to encourage certain behaviours within the workforce. Capital gains taxes have been altered for certain assets if held for minimum periods of time to promote prescribed behaviours in investors. I am concerned that the 40 per cent effective marginal tax rate decreases the desire of older Australians to provide more for themselves in retirement. I am concerned that people who may be able to provide a greater proportion of their own retirement income, through postpension age employment and/or preretirement savings and investments, may be discouraged from decreasing their reliance on the age pension by this form of tax.

It is said repeatedly that Australia needs retirees to provide for themselves as much as possible through superannuation. It is also said that Australia will increasingly need older Australians post the retirement age of 65 to remain in the workforce. Age pensioners see themselves on 40 per cent, with most wage earners being on 30 per cent, businesses being on 30 per cent and others receiving comparable income on 15 per cent marginal tax rates. Pensioners often ask me: ‘Why should I bother? Why not blow all my savings on a holiday before claiming the age pension and deriving its maximum benefit?’ Retirees within Hindmarsh may still go out and generate additional income by one means or another, but they are not at all happy with the disincentive and want it addressed.

The second point I want to make is that pensioners in Hindmarsh are still waiting for the federal government to recognise section 51 of the Australian Constitution and take responsibility for the provision of dental care. It is unimaginable how an administration can spend tens of billions of dollars and still manage to step around its responsibility for the oral health of Australians. I listened carefully to the Treasurer’s budget speech for half an hour last night and I have listened to him in many minutes of news grabs since and the number of times he has mentioned ‘dental care’, ‘oral health’, ‘dentures’ or ‘teeth’ is zero. How mean and how callous! There is a $17 billion surplus but for those who desperately need help with their oral health there is nothing—zero.

This budget shows the most blatant contempt for the health of senior Australians on limited means. We are left with the government’s previous assertion: ‘We meet our dental responsibility through the private health insurance rebate.’ Single age pensioners on $250 a week or couples on $210 a week each are going to be some of the least likely people in Australian society to be able to afford private health insurance. Age pensioners are a group in most need of direct assistance, when required, to overcome dental problems. Without such assistance what happens? It is what has been happening over the last 10 years: pensioners’ health suffers. Some of the most dutiful, honourable, hardest working and longest suffering people that this country has been able to produce are being left to endure poor dental health, and everyone knows that poor dental health leads to worsening overall physical health. This government may consider itself, or at least try to represent itself, as generous. But many thousands of our mums and dads out there do not think this is the case. As I said, the government have a $17 billion surplus, but they could not find it in their hearts to offer a Commonwealth dental health system to our retired people and age pensioners who can least afford dental care.