Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can guarantee that he does in terms of the process. What the question was referring to was how it was going to be calculated for the impact of the carbon price. That was not mentioned by Senator Johnston in his taking note contribution. Senator Ronaldson clearly knows that the point of his question was about how the pensioners on the DFRDB system would be impacted by the carbon price. That was what the minister went to in his answer. But in Senator Johnston's taking note effort, he turned that around to an attack on the foreign minister. That does not actually add to the debate. It becomes personal and minimises the impact of the original question.

We can tell people in this chamber what the impact on DFRDB pensions will be by the indexation of their pension. Certainly, you would have to admit that the minister did say that DFRDB pensioners will have their pension linked to the CPI. That is what happens now. That is the result of the Wallis review. That is the result of several debates, and I think there have been at least three debates in the last 18 months in this place on the way DFRDB pensions will be handled. After all of those debates, the end result is that the CPI is the way that the pensions will be handled. I fully expect that we will have these debates into the future, and so be it. But in looking at the way the question was answered today, and that is what taking note is all about, what was said was that they are done through the CPI—the impact on DFRDB pensions will be continuing. (Time expired)