Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the increases to the pension that take effect from today? What will these mean for our senior Australians?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson for her question. Having visited with her in her electorate, I know that her electorate is home to many Australians who have retired. No wonder they choose to retire there—it is a beautiful part of the world. Consequently, many people in her electorate and pensioners around Australia—3.5 million pensioners—will be interested to know that today they will see an increase to their pensions. Single pensioners at the maximum rate will get a boost of $35.80 a fortnight and couples a combined increase of $54 a fortnight.

As well as increasing the pension, we are also increasing the deeming rate. What that means is that more than 740,000 Australian pensioners will benefit. This comes on top of delivering the biggest increase to pensions in more than a century. Since 2009, Labor has delivered an increase of $207 a fortnight for single pensioners and $236 for couples on the maximum rate. Coupled with our new indexation arrangements, this means that the pension is keeping pace with the cost of living in a better way.

We also want to make sure that there is more assistance for pensioners to help them make ends meet, so we have increased the utility allowance to $400 a year. We are providing an extra $350 a year for singles and more than $530 for couples as part of the household assistance package. Pensioners received some of this through a lump sum last year. The rest will be paid through the Clean Energy Supplement, starting today. We are also delivering tax relief, with the new seniors and pensioners tax offset worth up to $2,230 a year for singles and $1,602 a year for each member of a couple.

We have made these decisions because we have set clear priorities for the $160 billion in savings that we have found across five years of budgeting. That is because we wanted to direct money to those who need that assistance the most, and that includes Australia's pensioners—3.5 million of them—who will see an increase in the pension from today.