Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My speech is one of thanks to the thousands of pensioners and self-funded retirees in my electorate of Tangney who have put people power back on the political map. Before the election in 2007, the then Leader of the Opposition was claiming he had a plan for everything. What he did not mention was that he also had plans which he was not prepared to share with the people of Australia before the election—and no wonder. What he proposed was a direct attack on retired Australians who had worked hard all their lives and made sacrifices to provide for their retirement by taking out superannuation. In a clear case of the politics of envy writ large, the Labor government proposed to penalise these people by denying many of them access to the Commonwealth seniors health card at the very time of their lives when it is most needed. Over 3,000 people in Tangney signed postcards in support of pensioners and retirees, and I brought these cards to Canberra. I would like to thank these constituents for helping to defeat such a mean-spirited and despicable attack on self-funded retirees in this country.