Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of Senator Cash’s motion. Before I move on to my comments I would like to respond to a couple of things raised by Senator Sterle. We have heard again from the government benches the only argument the government has ever been capable of mounting against the opposition’s promise to raise pensions by $30 per week—that is, simply: you are not doing everything, so we, being the government, will do nothing. It has no other argument and no other reason for opposing this, which it has done for months now. Senator Sterle raised the 56,000 training positions. It is interesting that that number almost matches the forecast increase in unemployment that this government has outlined in its own budget. So the training positions do not even cover the number of people whom this government is putting out of a job.

The opposition supports the increase in pension support that was announced by the Prime Minister today, but it is important to note that it was done under sufferance, it was done late and it provides pensioners with no security through a long-term commitment that will see their pension rate increase. The government, like many of its state counterparts, also seems to believe that saying something often enough makes it true. It does not. It is important to outline exactly what the coalition achieved when it was in government. We introduced the utilities allowance. We increased the pension by 24 per cent in real terms and 57 per cent in nominal terms and we linked it to 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings so that, as the economy grew and earnings grew, the pension went up with them.

I can understand why the government do not raise this nor seem to care about it, because wage growth is not something that seems to coincide with Labor governments. It was around one per cent in Labor’s last decade in office. The government in this place have defined tackling the pension problem as setting up a review. Today they talk of review and reform but they do not actually help pensioners and provide security with an increase in the pension base rate. The government simply say, ‘We have no compassion for pensioners.’ They say, ‘This pension support responds to the needs of the global financial crisis.’ There is no understanding of the need to support pensioners.

The opposition has indicated it supports this, but pensioners of Australia will not forget that this government does not understand them and that today it has said, ‘We are introducing this because of the financial crisis, not because we have listened to the people of Australia, pensioners across Australia, the opposition and the many other groups that have called for this $30 increase.’ It amazes me that the cries of pensioners across Australia have inspired this government to do nothing other than to say, ‘We are responding to a global financial crisis.’ It needs an excuse, and you should not need an excuse to do this.

The minister also outlined the economic position the government finds itself in. The truth is that the Australian people and experts in this field all know that it is a lot easier to have a $10.4 billion stimulus package when you inherit a $20 billion surplus, when you do not inherit a $10 billion budget black hole and $96 billion of debt. This package, which as I have said the opposition supports, is the direct result and dividend of over a decade of strong coalition economic stewardship and the surpluses and elimination of debt that I mentioned.

The fact that the minister referred to the bills pending before the Senate strikes me as typically hypocritical. Six or seven months ago these bills were being promoted as the way to restrain an overheating economy. They have been misleadingly labelled as bills to help tackle inflation, when they force up the price of private health insurance and the price of certain alcoholic drinks. They were outlined as meeting the need to slow the economy, yet the government is now saying we need to pass these bills to slow the economy at the same time as we are stimulating it. It shows a very basic failure of economics 101: that you should not be trying to do both at the same time. That the government is still proposing to increase the private health insurance rates for 200,000 people over the age of 65 who live on less than $20,000 per year shows it has absolutely no concern for the true needs of pensioners. Many of those people are on the pension, and some of the grant announced today will be eaten away by the increase in private health insurance. Let us just hope they do not like a Bundy and Coke, because that is going up as well.

The opposition has picked this crisis from day one. The Leader of the Opposition outlined that the credit crisis was going to have an impact on the economy back when this government was still talking about the economy overheating. The government has been beaten to the punch by the opposition three times now: on the purchase of mortgage securities for liquidity in the mortgage market, on guaranteeing Australians’ bank deposits and on pensions. I am sure the Australian people look forward to more backflips from the government on the proposed tax increases and on cutting the price of fuel.