Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I might not have quite the energy that the previous speaker brought to this, but I am very pleased to be supporting the amendment to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Energy Assistance Pavement and Pensioner Concession Card) Bill 2017.

Charles Dickens wrote a recipe for happiness, as explained by Mr Micawber from David Copperfield. He wrote:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.

That is the way that Terry Preeo, a pensioner from Blackheath described his experience of facing the government's cuts to his pension as a result of the changes to the pensions assets test.

Terry came to see me at a mobile office in Blackheath one sunny Saturday morning. He had attended my community forum in Springwood a few weeks earlier, where around 40 pensioners had explained the impacts to them of the pension cut they were facing. He had thought he would be okay. But, in fact, as it turned out he says that the effect of the cut to his pension on his life was much more profound than he had imagined. And that is when the David Copperfield quote sprang to his mind.

It is not easy being on some form of income support, on the lowest income level. It is not easy admitting that the work you did for probably 40-plus years did not allow you to provide comfortably for retirement, let alone then having a fragile financial structure crumble thanks to an unexpected government change from a government which had said 'no changes to pensions'. In supporting the amendment to this bill I want to talk about the attempts this government has made to deny pensioners and part-pensioners a dignified retirement and show why this government cannot be trusted to treat people fairly.

Let's talk first about schedule 1, which is a one-off payment for energy assistance to people on veterans payments, single parenting payment, disability support pension and the aged pension. The payment is $75 for singles and $62.50 each for each member of a couple. There is no doubt that this payment is needed and will help a little when people go to pay their power bill. But it is a one-off payment at the same time as the Prime Minister is taking $365 each and every year from single pensioners by removing the energy supplement for new pensioners.

I know that those opposite are not necessarily great at maths, but $75 does not come anywhere close to $365; it is $75 once versus $365 annually. The 2017 budget confirms that those opposite still want to cut the energy supplement. The Prime Minister can say what he likes about fairness, but he does not have a clue. If he really cared about how pensioners made ends meet he would not be trying to abolish the energy supplement. This energy assistance payment does not go far enough.

Now to pensioner concession cards. I have to say that the government's changes to the pension assets test on 1 July were difficult for many retirees in my electorate of Macquarie. In Macquarie there were 1,720 who each lost an average of $140 a fortnight, and 730 others lost their pension entirely. So in total 2,450 people faced a cut and had to find a different way to live.

When those changes were first announced, then Treasurer Hockey promised that those who lost their pension as a result of the change to the assets test would be able to keep their pensioner concession card. He said that anyone who currently had a pensioner concession card would continue to receive a concession card that provided the same benefits. That was his promise in his budget announcement. In fact, he was wrong—about a lot of things, but, particularly, about that. Instead, former prisoners were issued with healthcare cards and Commonwealth seniors health cards which did not provide the same benefits. For instance, without a pensioner concession card people who had formerly been pensioners were not able to access things like Australian Hearing services. And, of course, in different states different concessions were applied. As one pensioner from Springwood wrote to me, 'Concession cards are extremely valuable, giving discounts on utilities, council rates, rego and disability parking permits, just to name a few.' But pensioners lost access to that concession card—90,000 of them, all up, and it really rubbed salt into the wound for those who had also lost a significant part of their income so unexpectedly. It is hard to know whether this was deliberate on the part of the government or simply laziness by a shocker of a Treasurer. It seems the government did not even talk to the states and territories about maintaining the concessions. Either then Treasurer Hockey did not understand the detail and the difference between the two cards, or he just forgot to include the maintenance of eligibility for those concessions. Either way, it shows how much those opposite care. The loss of the pensioner concession card was a cruel double blow to many former pensioners with modest incomes.

At my forum in Springwood, people talked to me about the practicalities of losing income but also of losing concessions. Pensioners in the mountains, including Fay, were even asked to pay extra on their rates that they had paid in advance, because their status had changed. I want to thank all the pensioners and former pensioners who have spoken to me about these issues. They are deeply personal financial issues, and it is not something that people are always comfortable discussing, but, thank goodness, they did—because it is thanks to us being able to tell their stories and to the people who were willing to speak out on their own behalf that this government has been forced to see the heartlessness of those actions. It rarely does that, so, to those who spoke out: you did well.

This latest decision by the government is obviously an attempt to soften the blow of the pension shake-up— which, by the way, reduces the payments to pensioners by $2.4 billion over 2½ years—by reinstating these concession cards. The cost of reinstating them is just a smidgen of that—$3 million. It is not a lot of money, but pensioners will be grateful. It is thanks to their efforts that this has occurred, not the government's. While it helps a little, and while the one-off energy supplement helps a little, it does not undo the fact that there are many couples and individuals in my electorate whose retirement is much more difficult than they thought it might be.

When that assets test changed, the same one that led to part pensioners becoming non-pensioners and losing access to concession cards, it really undermined people's confidence in their own ability to manage their finances. I think what was really telling, for me, was the way people who had previously been entitled to a pension or part pension often insisted to me that they felt they were probably better off than many others, especially if they owned their own home. Retired people know who they can suggest goes out to dinner with them at a local restaurant, and who simply cannot afford the extra $25 or $30. They know who can afford to meet them in a cafe for a cuppa, and they know who they should suggest they have a cup of tea at home with. They have a sense about how they are faring, and they all know that the big fear of a huge electricity bill, an expected mechanical problem or a health issue would throw a spanner in the works for most older people. So they would say to me, 'We know there are people doing it tougher than us, but these changes are going to make it really hard to us, too.' It might have been a cut of $220 a fortnight or $180 a fortnight. That might not be a lot to those opposite, but it is a big chunk for someone living on a lower income.

People have shared with me the sacrifices they have been forced to make as a result of unexpectedly having less money each week to live on. The biggest area they have looked at—in places like the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury, where public transport between villages and suburbs is limited—is how they can reduce the costs of their car. Several people have explained the volunteer work they do often involves getting from their home to a local neighbourhood centre or a church or someone else's home. They have had to ask themselves, 'Is this what I cut?' One of my constituents from the Upper Mountains has asked herself many of those questions. She is in her 70s, a former teacher who retired in 2003 and opted for a state super pension. She thought that if she lived frugally and budgeted carefully she would be able to have a reasonable lifestyle and some degree of independence in her old age. She was also appointed legal guardian for one of her ex-students, who has special needs.

In 2007, she tells me, she satisfied the income and asset tests and qualified for a part-pension to supplement her super. The only income she had was her super, and her only assets were her home and a 12-year-old Magna. When she wrote to me in January this year she said that nothing has changed; the modest increase in her income, thanks to her part-pension, had allowed her to plan ahead and look to her needs and future living arrangements, to maintain private health cover and to continue her guardianship duties. She also was able to provide support for her Sydney and Brisbane and grandchildren in school holidays, which was an expense but one she was able to budget for.

But in January she went from a part-pension of $360 per fortnight to $140 per fortnight. That reduction was significant in her life and caused her to seriously consider the changes she needed to make. Would she continue her private health insurance? Would she continue her role as a legal guardian? Travelling to see him fortnightly and taking him on outings; attending regular planning meetings, which now included NDIS implementation; and being able to offer him time out at home when his carers were facing difficulties with his challenging behaviour were just part of the support that she had been able to offer. Should she tell her 88-year-old pensioner friend who lives some distance away in The Hills, for whom she has enduring guardianship, that travelling there each week and then visiting her 92-year-old husband in an aged-care facility in a different area was becoming financially difficult? These are the sorts of heartbreaking questions that somebody in her 70s is asking herself. She also wondered whether she could continue to support her family in Sydney and Brisbane with the care of her grandchildren in school holidays as the cost of travel was becoming a burden.

In her letter, she laughed at one suggestion. She said: 'Christian Porter condescendingly suggests that I rearrange my share portfolio to make up for my income loss! Well, I do not have a share portfolio and my assets and income have not changed since I passed that test in 2007. It seems that pensioners like me have been conveniently lumped in with the wealthy half-liers who can indeed afford to make adjustments to their income and assets'—and she goes on to say other things that are probably not parliamentary!

This is what the government has done. The Liberals really must think Australia has a short memory. It was only three years ago that they tried to cut pension indexation and leave pensioners $80 a week poorer over a decade. They have attempted to penalise retirees who take an overseas trip for more than six weeks by cutting their payments, with even harsher penalties for migrant pensioners. Supposedly, these cuts are gone for good, but I find that hard to swallow. The one they will not let go of is the plan to increase the pension age to 70, making retirement age in Australia higher than anywhere else in the world. And even if they cannot push these changes through, they want to make them at the same time as they are happy to throw around $55 billion of tax cuts to big business. It makes you wonder.

One thing I want to add is that, throughout all this concession card and assets tests business, the feedback I had from pensioners was that they wanted to pay tribute to all the staff at Centrelink. One pensioner wrote: 'I have nothing but praise for the Centrelink staff, who, under difficult circumstances, always did their best to help. I was under the distinct impression that they themselves were finding this process very difficult and were learning as they went along. However, they always assisted with good humour, courteousness and, I dare say, in many cases quite a degree of sympathy.' And I think we owe those Centrelink staff, who are under increasing pressure through a whole lot of moves by this government, a debt of gratitude for the work they do day in, day out.

But as always with this government, even when they are trying to make things slightly better, their legislation reminds us that they really do not understand what life is like for many people. Terry Preo, from Blackheath, uses Charles Dickens to make his point: 'The difference between happiness and misery may only be a few dollars.' Sadly, pensioners made worse off by this government but living in hope and expectation of better fortune will wait a long time for relief from the Turnbull government. The government do not realise that people do not have options to play with their income and that their choices are limited, and that people rely on knowing what the rules will be without them being changed mid-game. It might not mean much to the Prime Minister, but it is impossible to start playing a game of football—and in the spirit of State of Origin tomorrow night, let's call it League—and then halfway through find that the game has become rugby! He might not understand the difference, but that just proves how out of touch he is with the rest of Australia.

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