Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dawson for his question, particularly on behalf of the more than 11,000 age pensioners in his electorate. As he knows, pensioners in his electorate, like pensioners across Australia, are certainly facing very hard economic times. While there certainly remains more to be done, the government has made a start. We made a significant down payment to pensioners by way of the December Economic Security Strategy payments. They went to four out of every five Australians aged over 65.

Pensioners will also receive some benefit from the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, so that every pensioner who paid even $1 of tax in the last financial year will get the $900 tax bonus. Of course, many of the 20,000 social housing units will benefit pensioners. That builds on a number of things which we have already put in place—last year—for pensioners. If I can just inform the House, excluding normal indexation the government provided an additional $2,337 to single pensioners and $3,537 to pensioner couples. We have done that since coming to office, recognising the very significant pressure that pensioners are under. These have been significant gains for pensioners, and we know they would not have been delivered by the opposition.

It has been made absolutely crystal clear by the member for Warringah that the sorts of theatrics we saw from the opposition last year in relation to pensioners were nothing more than a political stunt. The member for Warringah, who is actually the shadow minister in this area, although nobody in this parliament would know it, actually arose from his usual slumber last week, went on to radio 2GB and said that he did not support an increase in the pension—

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