Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to page 30 of the government's Intergenerational report, which says that, over the next 40 years, wages growth will be four per cent a year whereas growth in domestic prices, or CPI, will be 2½ per cent a year. Why is the government cutting pension indexation that will see the value of the pension fall from 28 per cent of male total average weekly earnings today to just 16 per cent by 2055?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me repeat the two fundamental points. Pensions will go up twice a year every year—that is point No. 1. Point No. 2 is that the pensioners of Australia are significantly better off thanks to this government because the carbon tax has been abolished and the carbon tax compensation has been kept. I say to members opposite who are so enamoured of MTAWE that, if pensions had only gone up by MTAWE since the election, they would now be $20.70 per fortnight lower. That is the truth: under Labor's favourite indexation method, pensions would be lower at this time.