Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, as Senator Bernardi says, we took action. We have heard nonsense from the other side about us doing nothing for 11 years. That is another patent falsehood that has been perpetrated during this discussion. Pensions under the Howard government increased by more than two per cent above inflation every year for 10 years, and we also introduced one-off payments to pensioners—pension bonuses and carer bonuses—when the budget could afford it. Because of our good management of the economy, we could afford to pay and did pay increased pensions every year for 10 years. That is what we did. Is that enough? Of course, with the effluxion of time, it is not. Pensions, in my view, are ripe for an overhaul.

Now let us look at what the Rudd government is not doing for pensioners and carers. Look at the Rudd review into payment levels to both pensioners and carers—the Harmer report. Yes, it will not report to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs until when? February 2009. And even then, unless there is a total change of direction by this government, pensioners might be lucky if they get an adjustment as of July 2009. But I suggest that a much more likely scenario is that they will not get anything until the conclusion of the Henry tax review, which, the Senate will remember, is not due to report until towards the end of 2009, which means that pensioners will not get any structural change in the base pension until the 2010-11 budget.

Our pensioners, who have spent their working lives contributing to this nation of ours, are being swept aside by the Rudd government’s total lack of both attention and compassion to their daily plight. Which of us here in this chamber could live on $273 a week? I asked Senator Evans this question yesterday and he had no answer, although to his credit he acknowledged that more needs to be done. I thought that was encouraging. But I will ask the question again. Which one of us could live on $273 a week with the ever-increasing price rises they are facing since the Rudd government came into office? The answer has to be none of us. Frankly, if we have got the stomach to admit that, why is it that this government is forcing vulnerable, frail, aged people to do just that—subsist on a fixed income of $273 a week? It shows a lack of compassion that is breathtaking in its sheer callousness, and it sits squarely at the feet of the Rudd government.

To put that in context, let me give the Senate a couple of statistics that come from the government’s ‘Pension Review Background Paper’:

... 4.6 million Australians receive an income support payment of some kind from the Australian Government in the form of a pension or allowance ...

That equates to 27 per cent of the population aged 15 years and over, the paper states, and it goes on to state:

• 77 per cent of Australians over the age of 65 receive income support ...

The paper states that 59 per cent of those are women and 58 per cent are single. The paper further states:

Most pensioners have low incomes: over half have less than $20 a week of private income ...

…            …            …

... 30 per cent report having bank balances of less than $1,000 ...

…            …            …

Many pensioners rely on income support for long periods. The average total time on income support of current Age Pensioners is 13.1 years.

It is abundantly clear that the pension will need a substantial boost. What is the Rudd government going to do about it? You would think that an attentive and responsive government that was aware of the problem would be pushing now for at least an immediate one-off adjustment on the basis of the facts in this background paper alone. But what do we get? It is all too hard to do now, and more months of delay is Labor’s refuge.

When it comes to pensioners and carers and looking after our seniors, the Rudd government appears to have no policy direction and no ideas. Frankly, pensioners and carers come a dismal second when looking at Labor’s pecking order of working families. The only policy they have adopted is one where they have once again copied the Howard government, which introduced the carer payments, allowances and bonuses. Only after considerable public and media pressure did the Rudd government announce the continuation of those payments. And in relation to the Howard government’s utilities allowance, this government eventually decided to keep it.

The financial future and security of pensioners and carers is simply not sustainable on an ad hoc, afterthought basis, which is all they have got from Labor. Yesterday, in a press conference at Parliament House, the Chairman of National Seniors Australia, Mr Everald Compton, said:

This issue of the ageing of Australia and the cost of the ageing of Australia is a greater crisis than climate change.

But:

It’s not as sexy a subject as climate change ...

It is always difficult to rate big competing national priorities, yet the despair of pensioners after the budget in May caused groups of them to strip off their shirts in public in protest in the realisation that the very real claims for financial help that they had submitted to the government had simply been ignored. What have we come to as a country when proud senior citizens are forced to take that sort of public protest action to draw attention to the fact that they cannot live on, let alone live adequately on, $273 a week.

Let us look at another fact. The recent inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs into cost of living pressures on older Australians found that people on low incomes are disproportionately affected by rises in the cost of petrol, food, medical care and rental accommodation. All we have seen from the Labor government is their spectacular stunts: Fuelwatch and ‘grocery watch’. We know for instance that ‘grocery watch’ is now getting fewer hits on its website than an average amateur blog, and it is still costing the Australian taxpayer $13 million for the privilege.

So how can this be allowed to happen in this developed, wealthy country of ours? It is not as if we are talking about enhancing our comfortable standard of living. We are dealing with the failure to ensure just a basic, decent standard of living, and I think the pensioners and carers of Australia are entitled to nothing less. There seems to be a pattern emerging from the Rudd government—that is, a disposition to cold, callous indifference to the most vulnerable people in our communities: those who have contributed so much over their working lives and our fellow citizens to whom we owe so much. But it gets worse.

What that group of our vulnerable senior citizens is now facing is what the Rudd government has flagged as another change of policy. Not content to leave pensioners and carers out of the loop in the budget—out in the cold—this government has also taken a stick to the nation’s seniors, and 27,000 people are now at risk of losing their eligibility for the Commonwealth seniors health card. They are the very people who need the card most, and the government is penalising them while admitting that as the population ages there will be more demand on medical and pharmaceutical assistance for our aged folk to access concessional prescriptions as they get older. Yet some 27,000 of them are at risk of losing their Commonwealth seniors health card due to mean-spirited eligibility changes proposed by this government.

I could go on and on about consumer confidence. I could go on and on about how the pensioners who are so badly affected by petrol prices have been duped by useless policies like Fuelwatch. They are just smoke and mirrors, with the government wasting its time investing heavily in a fuel price-fixing program that will do nothing to bring down petrol prices. It is easy to see why consumer confidence is taking a hit, and it is time that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer took responsibility for the dramatic decline in consumer confidence rather than simply blaming it on everything else, including overseas. We know that there has been a reduction in household wealth, we know that small businesses are in a crisis in terms of lack of confidence and we know that the neediest Australians, our pensioners and carers, are crying out for help.

Labor truly are Australia’s economic vandals when you boil it all down. Australia is now worse off in wealth terms because of this government, which has run out of excuses. True leaders step up and take responsibility. All we have seen from Labor is overwhelming arrogance. They are out of touch and already out of puff.