Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Let me begin by observing that this is a time of great uncertainty for the financial future of older Australians. Senior Australians who are reliant upon income from shares have seen the value of those shares plummet over the last six months or so and have great uncertainty as to whether the dividends from those shares will maintain the incomes that they have become used to. For senior Australians who are largely dependent on the pension there is, of course, the Harmer review, which is currently before the government. It is said that the Harmer review will recommend a substantial increase in at least the single rate of the age pension. This raises all sorts of questions about what might happen to the single rate of other pensions, it raises all sorts of questions about what might happen to other pensions and benefits and, of course, it raises the biggest question of all: how is any massive increase in the rate of the single pension going to be paid for at a time of great pressure on government revenues?

To increase the single rate of the age pension alone by $35 a week would cost $1.7 billion a year. To increase the single rate of all pensions would cost well over $3 billion a year. In a situation where the government has spent $42 billion in one hit on the so-called stimulus package, in a situation where the budget position has moved from a $22 billion surplus to a $22 billion deficit in about eight months, the ability of the government to afford this kind of generosity towards pensioners is under enormous question. The Harmer review was delivered several weeks ago to the government. It is, as I said, strongly rumoured to recommend this very large increase in the single age pension. What the pensioners of Australia and senior Australians would like to know is: what else does the Harmer review recommend? I think it is scandalous that the government is not releasing the Harmer review so that senior Australians and other people with a legitimate interest can actually consider this, debate it and mull over it well in advance of any decision that the government might make.

Of course, there are rumours now circulating amongst senior Australians that one of the changes that the Harmer review recommends to help pay for this generosity to single age pensioners is to include the family home in the assets test. We certainly have had bodies that are thought to be close to the government and influential in the Harmer review process say that family homes worth over $1 million, which in Sydney is a very, very large number of homes indeed—or at least it was before the Rudd recession started to attack housing values—will be included in the assets test for the first time. So I think it is very important that this parliament and, through this parliament, the Australian population know that big uncertainties are crowding in on this area and that the government, if it is to be fair dinkum with the Australian people and if it is to be as honest as it claimed it would be pre election, really does need to put the Harmer review on the table publicly now rather than simply releasing it on budget night along with a whole lot of government decisions that will be presented as a done deal.

The Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Amendment (Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2009 and related bill before the parliament now deals with the eligibility of senior Australians for the Commonwealth seniors health card. At present, just under 300,000 senior Australians receive the Commonwealth seniors health card, and this is a very valuable benefit to those people who have it. The Commonwealth seniors health card gives recipients access to prescriptions at about $5 per go, as opposed to the standard rate of about $31. It gives recipients access to free prescriptions once they have spent about $300 a year on pharmaceuticals, as opposed to those without the card, who get access to the $5 rate for prescriptions only after they have spent more than $1,100 a year on prescriptions. The Commonwealth seniors health card gives many older Australians access to bulk-billing, because those who hold it are entitled to the bulk-billing incentive payments, or doctors who bulk-bill them are entitled to the extra payments. It gives holders access to the Medicare safety net at a much lower rate than would otherwise be the case, and it gives holders access to the $500 a year seniors concession allowance. In recent years it has given holders access to the $500 seniors bonuses in the budgets, it gives holders access to the telephone allowance, which in some cases can be well over $100 a year, and, in many states, it gives holders access to a range of state concessions for public transport, council rates, power bills and so on.

So this is an extremely valuable concession but, as a result of the legislation currently before the House, it is proposed to be taken away from a significant number of current holders. At the moment, the Commonwealth seniors health card is available to Australians of pension age who are not receiving a government benefit with taxable incomes under $50,000, in the case of seniors, and $80,000, in the case of couples. This is very important. Thanks to changes which the Howard government made, most superannuation pensions or annuities are not taxable. Thanks to the changes in this legislation, those annuities will not be taxable but they will be counted in the means test for the purpose of access to this card. When this change was first flagged in the budget, it was estimated that some 22,000 senior Australians who currently have the card will lose it. It is possible that, at least in the short term, there will be a lower number of Australians who will lose the card as a result of this legislation, should it be passed, because of the reductions in incomes that many seniors are now enjoying as a result of changes in the share market. But the fact of the matter is that over time very large numbers of Australians who otherwise would have received the Commonwealth seniors health card will lose it as a result of this legislation which the parliament is debating tonight.

Eighty thousand dollars a year sounds like lot of money, and to people on significantly less it is a lot of money, but let us not forget that the people who have this kind of income from their superannuation only have it because they have saved and put money away during their working lives. They have paid tax on that money. They paid tax on the money often enough when it was earned, they paid tax on the money when it went into the fund, and the income of these funds has been taxed, so this is not money which has not contributed to the general commonweal. This is not just a freebie for them; this is money that they have earned. This is money that has been taxed and this is money that now, in their senior years, they are getting back.

Let us not forget that every self-funded retiree saves the community perhaps $25,000 a year, a very substantial saving that taxpayers generally enjoy because of the hard work, thrift, prudence and responsibility of self-funded retirees. So, by prosecuting this particular piece of legislation, what we really have from the Rudd government is a sneak attack on self-funded retirees. These are decent, hardworking, responsible Australians who deserve a break. They were given a break by the Howard government and they do not deserve to have it taken away by the Rudd government.

In the course of this debate, I am sure we are going to hear lengthy argument from members opposite about consistency. They are going to say that this legislation just applies the same kinds of tests to this benefit that are applied to other benefits. I have to say that that is very convenient for the government to say now, but if they had a shred of decency and honesty—if they had any real sense of honour—they would have said this before the election, not after the election. They would have come clean with the seniors of Australia about their plans before the election rather than just springing this on people in last year’s budget.

I regret to say that the Rudd government has form in this area. The Prime Minister likes to stand before us as Captain Clean or the Milkybar Kid of Australian politics saying, ‘Look, you know, I’m honest; I’m straight; I’m true,’ but the fact of the matter is that we have had a series of means tests slapped on benefits that were not flagged prior to the election. In some cases they were explicitly disavowed before the election. We have the means test that has been slapped on the baby bonus, we have the means test that has been slapped on the family tax benefit part A, we have the means test that has been slapped on the childcare benefit, and we have the means test that has been put on the private health insurance rebate. To the best of my recollection, in the case of both the baby bonus and the private health insurance rebate, the government gave explicit pre-election promises that there would be no means tests—promises that have been shamefully broken by the government since that time. They are dishonest, sneaky means tests, and this is a dishonest, sneaky means test in the tradition of the Rudd government.

I hate to say it, because I know that not all members of the Rudd government are as animated as some are by old-fashioned notions of class warfare and envy. I see the minister for small business and deregulation at the table this evening; his title is no doubt soon to be changed to ‘minister for even smaller business and re-regulation’ in the wake of the Prime Minister’s Monthly essay, which sings the praises of regulation and denounces deregulation as some kind of noxious neoliberalism. To his credit, the member for Rankin, the minister for small business, has always been, at least by comparative standards, a voice for economic sanity inside the Australian Labor Party, so I suspect that there is much which dismays him in the current direction of the government, but that is what we have.

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