Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise unexpectedly, I guess, given the calibre of our new state government in New South Wales, to condemn that government for increasing rents for about 84,000 New South Wales pensioners in public housing and taking away part of their pension increase. Unfortunately, this is standard behaviour for this particular government.

After almost 12 long years of inaction by the former Australian coalition government, the current Labor government delivered historic pension reforms that have provided significant increases to pensioners: $154 per fortnight for the maximum rate single pensioners and $156 per fortnight for maximum rate pensioner couples. That was delivered in 2009. Then, in 2011, after Premier Barry O'Farrell became Premier of New South Wales, he put his hand in the pockets of those pensioners and took some of it for himself by increasing public housing rents.

Now we have a supplement coming through to pensioners of $250 for singles and $380 for couples, paid as a separate pension supplement because it is designed to compensate pensioners of all kinds—including disability pensioners and seniors pensioners—for what will be a modest increase in costs due to the price on carbon. In fact, it is due to overcompensate them for that modest price. But, once again, we have the Premier of New South Wales putting his hand into the pockets of pensioners and declaring that once that supplement becomes part of the base rate, in March next year, he will claw some of it back for himself. It is without any doubt a grubby cash grab on the part of this Liberal New South Wales government.

Many pensioners are doing it tough—we know that. They live on fixed incomes. They are aware every day of which prices are going up and which prices are not. For many, many years they were neglected by the Liberal government at the federal level. It is only since the Labor government came to power that their interests have been considered and large increases have been given. And, once again, we see the true character of the Liberal government in New South Wales in their willingness to put their hands into the pockets of pensioners and rip out whatever small benefit we might give them.

The irony in this is that if we gave this as a cash upfront supplement, in the way that the Howard government did from time to time, it probably would not be anywhere near as easy for a state Liberal government to rip some of it away. It is also in many ways politically more beneficial to pay it as a lump sum, because when the cheque arrives in the mail or the money arrives in the bank account you get the absolute recognition that this government did it or that government did it. So, politically, it is probably smarter to do it as a one-off payment rather than build it into the base, and that would also prevent the New South Wales government from making this grubby cash grab. But it is better for the pensioners if you build it into the base. That recognises that pensioners need to manage their budgets, and if it is built into the base they know exactly what they are getting on a weekly basis and can make their own choices about how they do that.

So if you do it the best way for the pensioner you get a grubby New South Wales government doing their best to take some of it back. This is appalling behaviour and I can tell you that the pensioners in my electorate—and there are over 3½ thousand of them—are very angry about this. I have also talked to my colleague Michelle Rowland, the member for Greenway, who is at home at the moment with her quite gorgeous new baby. She has been working very hard in her electorate on this, visiting public housing estates, writing to the Premier and talking to her pensioners, as I have been talking to mine, and I can tell you that the anger out there among pensioners in public housing is quite extraordinary. What an act from a state government that pretended in the election campaign they would be a warm and fuzzy government—the minute they were elected they put their hands into the pockets of pensioners to take money out. This is a money-grubbing act from a money-grubbing government. I condemn the New South Wales government for it. And I call on the opposition to guarantee that they will not take away this pension increase as part of the household assistance package if they are elected. (Time expired)

See this speech in context