Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I retract that. I apologise for saying 'limited intellectual abilities'.

There are three options, and I think that most people probably understand this. It can be indexed on male average weekly earnings, 27.7 per cent, on the CPI or on the fairly complex pension benefit arrangement that exists at present. So, there are three different ways it can be indexed. As I understand it, the decision by successive governments—which is a good decision—is that they choose the best of those three for the Australian pensioner. All we are saying is: for heaven's sake, surely our returned servicemen should get the same treatment.

I ask the government: why wouldn't you do this for these people? I ask the minister again to put this before his government. Other crossbenchers and I will be moving legislation along these lines yet again. We plead with you to go down this path. It is not a lot of money. You have cut four thousand million dollars out of the Army budget. Surely you can give back a little bit. But you are losing very valuable personnel at present. These people suffer death on the front line defending the things we believe in, and they have family breakdowns. Really, they should be entitled to a better deal than we in this place have with our indexation arrangements or even, God bless them all, Australia's pensioners. These people should get the best deal of all, but they are not. They are getting a second-rate deal at present.

I strongly agree with the opposition on this. If they did nothing in 12 years at least they are doing something now. As to what their motives are, I am not going to impugn them for that. I am just going to say, 'Good on you, Mr Opposition. We hope that you continue to fight for the best outcome, which is simply putting them in line with all of the other pensions.' I think that is more than warranted.

I can see absolutely no point in depriving our servicemen of these benefits. It would appear to me that the opposition is doing that, and, I hate to say it, but they are doing it for political reasons.

That seems to be the clear and unequivocal interpretation that I can put upon what is happening here. If I am wrong someone can come and explain it to me. I would be quite happy to listen to them.

We thank the government for these changes, but we must emphasise that there is no logic, and there most certainly is no humanity involved, in the continuing position by the government of not accepting the preferable alternative as far as indexation of the pensions goes. It is a point of view that my own party will be hammering continuously and continually. Many of the people in the services are closely associated with us and we most certainly intend to be their champions. I think that every single person here should be their champions, but for 12 years the opposition were not and for three years the government has not been. But we will be the first to congratulate either side if they move forward to a serious indexation of the pensions.

I, like many members here, am very gravely embarrassed by us getting parliamentarians' indexation through—indexation of a very generous nature—while having to face these people who have risked their lives, risked their families and sacrificed themselves in a very tough occupation for our sake. I really do think that—unlike myself—a lot of these people act out of patriotism.

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