Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this month the Treasurer released the long-awaited five-yearly Intergenerational report. Typical of the Treasurer and of the Abbott government, what should have been a non-political guiding document was twisted for political purposes. Before it was even released, the government reportedly spent $380,000 on focus groups to ensure that it got its messaging right about the report. As most political observers would have noticed, the report was clearly used to set the scene for the May budget. Having failed miserably to sell the 2014-15 federal budget, the Treasurer wants to ensure that the government does not repeat the mistakes of its first budget and has already begun softening up the Australian people by talking up the difficulties Australia will face in the years to come unless tough action is taken now. As with every other policy of the Abbott government, the narrative is one that plays on people's fears. It has become a common theme of the Abbott government. In this case it is the fear of dire financial consequences if governments fail to act now, which is code for saying that parliament should pass its unfair budget measures, many of which particularly hit older Australians.

That the budget should be sustainable over the long term is not in question. What is in question are the choices being made by the Abbott government to balance it. My concern with the government's fear strategy is that it is being used to bring in further austerity measures which unfairly place a greater financial burden on the most needy in society. Once again, older Australians are in the firing line. The Treasurer's narrative about an ageing population and people living longer is clearly designed to soften Australians for further cuts or other unfair measures. Even more dishonest is the perception being created by the government that older people are a burden on society. It is a demeaning perception that has little regard for not only the working life contributions of Australians before retirement but equally for their contributions after retirement. Older Australians are at the core of volunteering in Australia, worth tens of billions of dollars each year. They are also a major provider of childcare and foster care for grandchildren, and there are many other examples we could all refer to of the daily contributions older Australians make to the Australian economy.

We already know from its 2014-15 budget that the Abbott government wants to push the retirement age to 70 years and to reduce the pension increase by tying it to CPI increases. But, if that was not enough, the government has also tried to introduce a Medicare co-payment of $7 for doctor's visits, X-rays and pathology tests, knowing full well the impost that that would have on older Australians. Nor do I believe that the issue has gone away, despite the government having temporarily dropped the idea. The government also wants to increase the PBS co-payment.

But the attack on older Australians by the Abbott government did not end there. The government, without warning, terminated the national partnership on certain concessions, which had been in place since 1993. This was a 21-year-old agreement put in place to compensate the states for additional imposts placed on them by the Commonwealth. For South Australia, terminating the agreement meant a cut of $28 million in 2014-15, an amount almost equal to the cost each year of pensioner and senior card holder council rate rebates. The South Australian government has agreed to pick up the $28 million cut for the 2014-15 year but has made no commitment beyond that. Despite the protests of South Australian Liberal MPs and their spin that the federal government only funds around 10 per cent of the concessions, the fact is that the Abbott government has cut $28 million in concessions and the South Australian government is simply passing on the cuts virtually dollar for dollar. Whether the state government passed on the cut by cutting the council rebate in full or spread it across all concession areas, the net effect on pensioners would be the same.

Not content with those cuts, the Abbott government has also cut the dementia supplement of $16.15 per day; axed the seniors supplement for Commonwealth Seniors Health Card holders, worth $876 for singles and $1,320 for couples combined per year; and cut the deeming threshold used in the pension income test from September 2017 from $46,600 to $30,000 for singles and from $77,400 to $50,000 for couples. The Abbott government should stop trying to balance its budget on the back of older Australians and low-income households and look to the much fairer options that it has available to do so.