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

Today is a great day for senior Australians in the electorate of Hindmarsh, which I represent. Of course, today is a great day for all Australian pensioners across the country because today four million aged pensioners, disability support pensioners, veterans pensioners and carers have seen what a government that is committed to their wellbeing can do and is going to do regardless of whether they are single or in a couple relationship.

Pensioners have asked for help and today pensioners are receiving help. Considering the amount of help that the Rudd government is giving pensioners, Australia has not seen anything like this in a very, very long time. I am referring to the Prime Minister’s announcement to provide $4.8 billion of financial relief to four million Australian pensioners as a down payment while the government prepares its long-term reform and assistance package focused on our nation’s pension and social security system, due to be released next year. Single pensioners will receive $1,400, couple pensioners will receive $2,100 and carer allowance recipients will receive an extra $1,000 for each eligible person they care for in a non-taxable lump sum payment in the fortnight commencing 8 December this year.

This $4.8 billion package builds on the $7.5 billion in support provided in the government’s first budget, bringing new spending on pensioners, seniors and carers to $12.3 billion. This great step forward has been made possible by this government without excluding veterans’ affairs pensioners, as the Liberal Party had intended to do, and without excluding carers, as the opposition again appeared comfortable doing. Their tokenistic argument of a $30 increase was flawed, as we all now see, because it excluded so many deserving and needy older Australians. The Liberal Party’s attempt to pressure the government, if it had worked, would have only brought about inferior and insubstantial change of limited benefit and of even more limited scope. This Rudd Labor government initiative is the genuine article.

This government is engaging in genuine and long-term reform, with benefits that will extend through generations to come in building our nation, saving the Murray, funding our schools and hospitals and clearing the political decks of the blame games and cost shifting that we saw over the 11 years of the coalition government. This is the first part of a reform in which senior Australians and pensioners can take pride, knowing full well that this Rudd Labor government will deliver in the Australian national interest. I thank the government on behalf of all the constituents within the electorate of Hindmarsh, which I represent, for hearing our pleas and taking such bold and decisive action today while continuing to develop our new and improved pension and social security system. (Time expired)