Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say at the outset that the coalition welcomes support for Australian pensioners. They are important contributors and members of Australian society. They are people who obviously deserve the support which this country can provide for them. In fact, the coalition has a proven track record over many years, indeed many decades, of supporting Australian pensioners.

The real income of pensioners increased by 20 per cent under the Howard government—that is, by more than two per cent a year. There were also one-off bonuses paid to most pensioner categories, as well as a utilities allowance which was paid to pensioners for the first time under the previous government. Furthermore, in September 1997, the Howard government legislated to index pensions using the male total average weekly earnings if that index was higher than the consumer price index. This enabled pensioners to keep ahead of cost-of-living increases and to share directly in the wage increases flowing from the strong economic performance of the Howard government of more than a decade.

The Howard government also eased the taper rates, which enabled 300,000 older Australians to receive the pension for the first time or to get an increase in their pension rate. But in September 2009 the Labor government raised the income test taper rate for the age pension from 40c to 50c, reducing the age pension payment by 50c for every dollar above the income threshold that delivers the full age pension income. In September 2008, almost three years ago to the day, the coalition in opposition moved a private member's bill to increase the pension by $30 per week, at a time when figures showed that more than half of elderly Australians were then living below the poverty line. But, rather than support a fair go for pensioners, this Labor government arrogantly labelled the call for a pension increase a 'stunt' and opposed the motion in this place, using its numbers in parliament to defeat it. In fact it was the current Prime Minister who later boasted that she was the one in cabinet who held this up to the light and led the opposition to an increase in pension payment which the coalition had proposed at that time.

I think these things should be kept in context, when we hear the government crowing, as they do today, about how much they have done for pensioners. However, the coalition's pressure at the time eventually did force Labor to finally address the issue in the 2009 budget, but they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that position. They crow now about the increase in the pension, but the reality was that at the time they were very reluctant to actually provide that.

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