Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My electorate of Murray is one of the lowest-income electorates in Australia. Over 60 per cent of the constituents are on some form of welfare support, a safety net that is, very rightly, in place. I have a big aged population. My electorate is low-income because the people are farmers and food factory workers. They are people who have worked hard all their life, but often as they enter retirement they just cannot make it with sufficient retirement income to carry them through. So, we have a safety net in Australia.

You would think, hearing now from the opposition, that my office would be under siege from my constituents, complaining about these new measures we are introducing with the support of the Greens. You would think, given that my constituents are very much more likely to be on some sort of welfare support, particularly aged care benefits, than people in most other electorates that I would be under siege. But, do you know what? I have not had a single complaint about this measure. And do you know why? It is because my electorate understands that this has to be a targeted measure in that for people who have over $1.15 million in assets plus a family home we just cannot continue to support that couple with a part pension.

We know that. They know that. And they know that Labor left us with a massive debt. They know they left us with the need to borrow about $100 million a day to pay down their debt. They know that we had $1 billion a month in Labor's interest to pay. It is a legacy of their profligate spending; their untargeted measures; their shocking pink batts project that killed people; their Grocery Watch, which had to be pulled after 10 minutes because it was useless; and the Gillard school halls. I had a school in Nathalia begging for a new toilet block. But no: the Gillard school hall scheme would not give them a toilet block; they had to have a new classroom, and it ended up being built over their small school oval. They were not allowed to have any flexibility in terms of what they actually needed to have that money spent on. That is the Gillard-Rudd legacy: debt and despair.

My constituents know that it is not sustainable to pay aged pensions to people who do not need them. I am very concerned about women in our workforce now who have broken work histories because of child rearing or looking carers for disabled people in their household. When they head into their retirement they are going to need a pension or a part pension to carry them through to their last days. Therefore our government and successive governments need to have the capacity to pay the $150 billion welfare bill annually. About $40 billion of that is for the age pension. They understand that.

When Labor offered $900 cash in hand when they were in government as a sweetener, as a 'please vote for us' measure, a number of the people who received that $900 were either deceased or back living in New Zealand. It was an untargeted measure. Part of the problem of the Labor government was that when it got into government—and, as you know, we left them a surplus of some $20 billion—they saw that as just a beautiful big birthday present to spend as they wished. Australia's surplus is now depleted, after being built up by the coalition's careful budget management.

The people of today know we have to have a sustainable economy and one that can afford welfare measures targeted at those in need, not those who think that this is a good deal and that what they can get away with will do. I am afraid that if you have $1.15 million in assets plus a family home, as a couple, then you actually do not need a part pension; you can do very nicely. But if it turns out that some disaster happens in your household, some extraordinary expense, and you lose that $1.15 million worth of assets, then of course you can turn around and apply for a pension. You are not excluded from that scenario, like the member for Sydney seemed to think.

I also need to add that this measure continues to provide access to the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card or the Health Care Card for those who will no longer be eligible for the pension or part pension under the new rules. I think that is a measure that is most generous of our government, on behalf of taxpayers, but it is also what matters most to a lot of those part pensioners. They say to me, 'If only we could keep the Health Care Card.' Well, they will, with this measure. Of course it has to be affordable. My electorate is not complaining. They are a low-income electorate, and they understand the realities of inheriting Labor's debt and what we had to do about it.

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