Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I support all of the comments made by the member for Jagajaga in respect of this matter. I welcome the opportunity to speak about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Cost of Living Concession) Bill 2015. As the member for Jagajaga has just pointed out, Labor will be supporting this bill. The bill, effectively, excludes the cost-of-living concession payment made by the South Australian government from being assessed as income under the social security and veterans' affairs income test.

As has just been pointed out by the member for Jagajaga, and write quite rightly so, in their first budget after the 2013 election, the coalition government abolished the National Partnership Agreement on Certain Concessions for Pensioner Concession Card and Seniors Card Holders. They did so without, at any time in the lead up to the 2013 election, telling pensioners across Australia that they would be doing that. They did so after having told pensioners and given them the assurance that there would be no changes made to pensions in this country. Yet, on coming to office, one of the first things they did was cut payments and support measures for pensioners in a range of areas—which I will get to in a moment—particularly with respect to the national partnership agreement that had been in place since 1993.

This was an agreement that had been honoured in the past not only by Labor governments but also by the Howard government throughout all of its term in office and, at no stage, had the Howard government suggested that it should not honour that agreement. Yet this coalition government, on coming to office, not only walked away from the agreement but also, in doing so, walked away from pensioners and hid behind the pathetic excuse that the concessions funded were state government responsibilities. The member for Hindmarsh, which the member for Jagajaga quite rightly alluded to, not only supported the cuts made but also stood up here and defended the cuts being made, saying that these were responsibilities of the state governments. It is notable that there is no single member of the coalition that even wants to speak to this bill.

Let me go to the background of where the $1.3 billion that was cut by the coalition arises from, because the national partnership agreement, as I said a moment ago, goes back to 1993. The origins of it are this—and these are not my words, these are the words of the Parliamentary Library:

The NPA had its origins in a decision by the Australian Government to extend access to the Pensioner Concession Card (PCC) to all pensioners, including part-rate pensioners, from 1993.Eligibility for concessions provided by the state and territory governments is linked to the PCC. Therefore the cohort of pensioners eligible for concessions expanded. Recognising this, the Australian Government agreed to provide funds to the states and territories to cover some of their increased costs from 1993. The formal 1993 agreement allocated set amounts to each state and territory, to be indexed and adjusted for growth in state pensioner populations over time. The Australian Government funding would be in the form of a Specific Purpose Payment, requiring states and territories to provide an agreed set of concessions on essential services to all pensioners.

That makes it absolutely clear that the payments were made to the states because the federal government wanted to expand the program.

In wanting to expand the program, the states quite rightly said, 'We are happy to do that if the federal government funds the expansion.' The federal government at the time did so and the states secured that commitment through an agreement—and 20 years later, this coalition government is the first government to walk away from that agreement. It is a shameful act given that this was a clearly set out and negotiated arrangement between the federal government and the states. For members like the member for Hindmarsh, and other South Australians who have come into this place, to try to claim that these were state government responsibilities not only shows that they were prepared to walk away from the pensioners of South Australia but shows their complete ignorance of the background to this concession payment.

The South Australian government, to its credit, introduced a $200-a-year payment to offset the federal government's cuts. The payment will offset cost-of-living pressures such as council rates and electricity, gas and water bills. Previously, council rate support was provided through a direct concession that appeared on council rate notices each year—an amount of $190. In its first year, the cuts meant a hit of about $28 million for South Australia, with that amount projected to rise each subsequent year. The state government decided that a better way of managing this matter would be to provide a direct payment of $200 to the eligible recipients each year and allow them to manage their finances as they saw fit. If a person has a pensioner concession card, a Veterans' Affairs card, a low-income healthcare card or a Commonwealth seniors healthcare card, they will be able to access the $200—or part thereof, depending on their income. It will also go to people who are on Newstart allowance, sickness allowance, widow allowance, youth allowance, partner allowance, parenting payment, bereavement payment or special benefits, as well as to Community Development Employment Program recipients, ABSTUDY recipients, Austudy recipients and people who are on the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme. That is my understanding of who may be eligible for the $200-a-year payment.

In the past, because the state government directly funded the concession through the $190 that went to council rates, the $190 was not assessed for income purposes for the recipients of that payment. Because it is now a direct payment, we need to ensure that that continues to be the case. In other words, recipients should not be penalised for receiving the support as a direct payment when it is replacing a cut made by the federal coalition government to support that was previously not considered as income. This bill does exactly that and of course we support it.

The bill also goes to the heart of the attack on pensioners by this government. As I mentioned, the member for Jagajaga has quite rightly pointed out the range of cuts this government has tried to introduce—in most cases unsuccessfully—since coming to office with a direct impact on the income of pensioners in this country. For South Australia this is an important issue, because South Australia has an ageing population. The figures suggest that there are more older people in South Australia than in most other states. This is especially true of Hindmarsh. I am well aware, through my discussions with my good friend and former colleague, the former member for Hindmarsh, Steve Georganas, that the pensioner community in Hindmarsh is considerable—and they were very concerned about this cut when it was made.

It was not just the pensioner concessions. If it were, the government might have been able to sweep it under the carpet. The truth is, this was a government that tried to balance its budget on the back of the lowest income families in this country, and that includes pensioners, many of whom really found it tough to make ends meet. The $190 cut to their council rates has now been replaced by the $200 a year payment from the state government. I have spoken with some of those people in my own electorate at a one-on-one level, and they are very genuine when they say that it will make a difference to their income levels. I can recall the debate in South Australia when the state government decided to make the payment and the welcome relief that was clearly evident across the pensioner sector as a result of the state government having agreed to make the payment. In the first year the South Australian government simply funded the $190, but then they introduced the payment as an ongoing measure, and that brought the relief that people were looking for.

This goes to the heart of how pensioners have been treated in this country, and certainly in South Australia, by the federal coalition government. We not only saw the cuts made as a result of the $1.3 billion being slashed from the states for this purpose but then we saw this government try to increase the Medicare co-payment, starting at $7 and then going to $5, and then it put a freeze on the doctors' MBS payments. All of these measures go to the heart of the income of pensioners. We acknowledge time and time again in this place that our pensioners, for one reason or another, quite legitimately have to go to the doctor on a regular basis. Every time they do, these additional costs impact on their ability to continue to make ends meet, yet this government decided that that was something it wanted to do. Then by changing the assets test, supported by the Greens, some 330,000 current pensioners also had their incomes affected. Again, I have had people contact my office, and my constituents have contacted me, saying that this is not fair and it will affect their income.

We have a government which, whichever way you turn, has decided that pensioners are easy pickings. Can I say to the members opposite, to the Member for Hindmarsh, who is sitting in the chamber right now, that I am sure he knows full well that the pensioners in his electorate are not happy with the way this government has treated them. They are not happy with the fact that, prior to the election, they were told that there would be no cuts made and ever since we have seen one form of cut after another being made; they are not happy with the fact that they are being asked to tighten their belts to find cuts out of their meagre income each year whilst the big end of town is allowed to go scot-free and continue in many cases to make huge profits and pay very little tax; and they are not happy with the fact that this government is playing off one sector of the community against another.

I want to conclude with this comment: the state government in South Australia, the Weatherill government, to its credit worked through this issue methodically and carefully. There was a long debate about it at the time—it went on for several months—and the state government decided that it would best manage this program by allocating a direct payment of $200. It did so because it knew that there were some current anomalies in the system of who was entitled to council concession rates and who was not, particularly with respect to those people who might have been living in what we call housing trust homes in South Australia. It came to the conclusion that the fairest way to support pensioners, concession card holders and welfare recipients in South Australia was to give them a direct payment of $200 and allow them to choose how they would use it to offset their cost-of-living expenses. Of course it is a direct payment to them, and the thing we do not want to see is that money being treated as income, which in turn will affect their income. If it is assessed as income it will affect the income they might receive as their pension payment and the like. As the member for Jagajaga has quite rightly said, we support this measure because it simply puts into effect the intent of the $200 payment.

Finally, I will say this: not one of the coalition members opposite has decided to come in and speak on this motion. I am not surprised about that because the truth of the matter is that they would be speaking on a matter which they instigated and which they are responsible for—a $1.3 billion cut to pensioners across this country. But it also highlights, in my view, the fact that, whilst they might publicly say they care about pensioners, they do not even have the courage to come in here and speak about pensioners or take a stand on behalf of them, and that is shameful. With those comments, once again, we support this measure.

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