Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS'—the words of the Prime Minister a matter of days before the last federal election. There was no equivocation and no suggestion that there were reasons why there might be a need to make adjustments. It was absolutely explicit and absolutely clear cut. And yet what have we seen? We have seen a series of proposals from this government, sponsored by this Prime Minister, to attack the very people whose support he sought before the last election, with absolutely clear and explicit commitments.

When he talked about 'no change to pensions', what he then announced was changes to the very means by which pensions are calculated and adjusted over time to maintain living standards—the very means by which those who survive, have worked through their working lives and have earned the right to gain a pension seek to maintain their living standards in their twilight years. Those changes will have a dramatic impact on the living standards of those people: a cut equivalent to something like $80 per week over the next decade, and some $23 billion ripped out of pensions entitlements by 2024-25. It is a disgrace.