Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

Australians should be very, very clear: Tony Abbott is coming after your pension. Whether you are a part pensioner living in the electorate of Banks, Braddon or Lindsay, each and every one of you now know that Tony Abbott is coming after your pension. If you are now on an age pension, if you are going to be on an age pension in the future, each and every one of you should know that this Liberal government and each and every one of these Liberal members of parliament are after your pension. That is exactly what they are doing.

People who are planning now for their retirement, people who are saving hard—all of them need to know that this Liberal government is after their retirement savings. That is exactly what each and every one of you opposite is doing. People who are now aged between 50 and 60, who are planning their retirement need to know that this Liberal government will make sure that their savings are attacked. That is what each of you opposite are doing and it is what all of you are going to be voting for.

Independent analysis in the last few weeks has shown that half of all new retirees will be impacted hard by these cuts to the pension. That is exactly what this is all about: these are cuts to the pension. All these hardworking Australians, who have saved for their retirement, will lose out if Tony Abbott gets his way.

All of us on this side of the parliament know—of course, you all try to block it out—that Tony Abbott said time and time again before the election that there would be no changes to pensions, no changes at all. Of course, as soon as he had the chance in last year's budget, he pushed through—and all of you voted for it—a cut to indexation of the pension of $80 a week. That is what you were prepared to take off pensioners. Of course, pensioners will never forget what you did, what you tried to do and they will never forget that each and every one of us campaigned for the last year to defeat that measure and we have defeated it. But of course pensioners know that, when Tony Abbott sees a pensioner, he cannot help himself.

Last budget he tried to cut indexation; this budget he has dreamt up a new way of cutting the pension. This year it will affect 330,000 part pensioners. Of course, you never hear them mention the people who are going to lose. You did not hear that from anybody in question time today, whether it be the minister, the Prime Minister or from the Assistant Treasurer just now. They do not want to mention the 330,000 part pensioners, who live in the electorates of Lindsay, Bass, Braddon and all those seats that are full of part pensioners, who are all going to lose. You go out there and tell those part pensioners that you are going to cut their retirement savings, because that is exactly what you are going to do. We also know that you have not forgotten about the other change that you announced last year: to make every single Australian work until they are 70. None of us has forgotten that, but all of you want to make sure that Australians have to work until we are 70. Shame on each and every one of you!

Pensioners have been calling and writing to us over the last few weeks since the budget, saying, 'We can only hope that Labor will do everything in their power to protect pensioners.' And we will. We will do exactly that. The Australian pensioners know that we are their friend and that we will support them—unlike all of those people opposite. What we also know is that the reality for part pensioners is going to mean a very, very substantial cut. I would be very keen to hear the nature of the exchange when you knock on a door in Penrith and tell a part pensioner that, as a result of this legislation, you want to take $8,000— (Time expired)

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