Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This government is just great at using the word 'sustainable'. They are saying that this measure is because they need to have a sustainable budget; they need to cut $2.4 billion out of the pockets of our pensioners because it is about budget sustainability. Yet in the same budget this government is handing out subsidies for nannies. So, let's just be clear about it when they talk about saving the budget money. It is about priorities. This bill is not about saving the budget money; this bill is all about the unfairness in the priorities of this government.

So, let's just be clear about who they are actually attacking when it comes to these changes to pensions. For the members opposite, the people who it will target are pensioners—people who have retired now and who are on modest incomes and super incomes. It will also target people who are currently working, and for those who may not know a worker in their electorate, let us just talk about who they are for a moment. We are talking about people who are 45 and 50 today and who plan to retire in 20 years time. They are earning as little as $45,000 a year. We are talking about the people who work at SPC in the member for Murray's electorate, people who are earning right now less than $45,000 a year in their jobs. These are the people who this government is going to attack when it comes to these changes in super. They will lose about $1,500 a year in their part pensions because of these reforms.

I agree with the member for Murray. People in her electorate, like people in my electorate, have worked hard in low-paying jobs and they deserve the support of the government when they retire. Yet what we have seen from this government is lots of spin and lots of trickiness and their not telling the truth about who these pension changes are really going to hit. They are going to hit people who are on modest and low superannuation incomes. Workers who are earning as little as $45,000 a year who are thinking about their retirement are going to be hit by these changes. I do not think the government backbenchers have worked out yet how many working people in their electorates will be hit really hard as a result of these changes.

In total, one million retirees will have their pensions cut, including around 700,000 people in their 50s and 60s who are looking to retire. How will they be hit? Any pensioner couple with more than $450,000 or thereabouts in assets will have part of their pension cut. Any single pensioner with more than $290,000 in assets will have part of their pension cut. These are not millionaires, as the government is trying to convince us. These are people on modest incomes. These are people who, through their enterprise bargaining and through their workplace, have been able to secure some superannuation. But it is not the millions that the government and the Greens would like to pretend to you. These are people in your electorates and in our electorates working in manufacturing, working as teachers and working as nurses who will be hit because of these changes.

A couple of the pensioners have contacted me in the last 24 hours since learning about the deal that has been done by the Greens and the government. This is what they have said to me. One of the pensioners who will be affected is a 73-year-old widow from Woodend who owns her small home. She was a teacher and a social worker. She currently has $350,000 in super and currently gets the part pension of $330. She has been told by her financial planner that the money that she has might last the next 20 years. But what she has just been given by this government is a massive cut to her retirement income, forcing this particular woman into poverty.

It seems to be the wish of this government to go after those in the middle and force them into poverty. These people, who are in their 50s, 60s and 70s, have no ability to earn extra super to put themselves into the realm of the high superannuants that this government seems to support most. They are people stuck in the middle. This superannuation and retirement income was always about a generational change. Compulsory super did not come in until 1992, which means governments must support our part pensioners so that they have a decent retirement income. But this government and the people that are in government do not understand that these changes will affect good, honest working people.

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