Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That previous contribution was quite extraordinary, celebrating a measure which is now being reinstated when it was something that they took away in the first place. I am quite flabbergasted! And that was coming from a government that has no national energy policy. I am a little lost for words! But I will go to my speech, because I have a lot to say on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Energy Assistance Payment and Pensioner Concession Card) Bill 2017.

This is a bill that this side of the House will support, not because this government has suddenly had a policy masterstroke but because Labor cares about pensioners. This is a government that is planning to take away the energy supplement of $365 a year and instead offering a one-off payment of $75 for a single and $62.50 each for those who are in a couple. In Tasmania, where we have clean, green renewable energy created with our own baseload in hydro dams and supplemented by wind power, a $75 one-off payment for, say, a single mum with a couple of kids will not cover the electricity that that mum has used for a week. It would not make much difference at all.

It is also quite astounding that this bill does not provide any support for people on Newstart, some of the most vulnerable people in our community, who do not live at home where they can be supplemented by their parents and are out there trying every day hopefully to find a job. They are doing what they can to make ends meet, and there is no support for them.

Why is this assistance so important for Tasmanian pensioners? The Australian Energy Regulator report found that, of any state in the national electricity market, low-income Tasmanians pay the highest proportion of their income for electricity. A low-income family in Tasmania without any concession will typically pay about $2,000 a year or 8.5 per cent of their disposable income to Aurora Energy for 6,600 kilowatt hours of electricity. Middle-income households pay about 4.3 per cent of their annual income, and high-income households pay just 1.75 per cent.

In order to reduce one's bill, you have to reduce your consumption—that is quite clear; I think people get that—as Tasmania's average unit cost of electricity is sensitive to consumption levels. So, clearly, in Tasmania a way that you can reduce your electricity bill is by reducing your consumption. So you can imagine that pensioners will reduce their consumption in order to reduce their bills, because the government is planning to take away their supplement. But at what point does this mean pensioners are going to live through winter with no heating at all? Sadly, this is something that I hear all the time, even with the energy supplement in place. Sonia, from Ulverstone, in my electorate, who is in her seventies, recently wrote to me. She said:

I am an aged pensioner and currently renting the premises in which I am residing.

The cost of power has risen significantly.

And she was actually quoting about over 25 years. That is how much she takes notice of her electricity bill.

The cost of heating is a major portion of that cost.

I am sure that many pensioners, even those that own their own homes, are going without adequate heating rather than facing a bill for power that takes up a fortnights income, leaving them with little to cover essentials such as groceries and or medication. I am one of them.

There are thousands of Sonia's in my electorate.

My electorate has a higher proportion of the population on the aged and disability support pensions compared to the state average and obviously a higher proportion than the national average. I have heard of many pensioners living without heating over winter, who sit there pretty much freezing. In some cases in Tasmania it is just as cold as a Canberra winter. So you can imagine what it would be like, in a room putting on as many layers as you can and not even being able to afford to turn on a little heater—not even a heat pump, which is probably the most efficient way of heating a home. You would not even be able to afford to turn that on—and this is with the energy supplement that the government is now planning to take away and replace it with a little one-off payment that would not pay the energy bill for a week.

For those pensioners on a pensioner concession card—which they are reinstating for some and took away from some—the state government provides $56 per year and an annual electricity concession of 132.557c per day for those with a pensioner concession card or a healthcare card. Even with all that support for Tasmanian pensioners, they are still finding it hard to be able to afford to turn on their heaters in a Tasmanian winter. And this government is planning to whack them again by taking away the energy supplement and giving them a little sweetener. That is a diversion if ever I have heard one, and they should be sitting there bowing their heads in shame.

With less support to pay for their bills, I know that this will only get worse. We can see this in disconnections for non-payment. This is a marker of those in our community who are finding it hard to pay their electricity bills. In 2015-16 there was a 12 per cent increase in disconnections for non-payment, from 1,046 to 1,172. Sadly, you have to say that this can only get worse. The average electricity debt was $739. One in five customers of Aurora, the only energy retailer in the state, entered a partnership program and had a debt of more than $2,500. That is extraordinary. And what does this government do? Take away the supplement. Now, with the closure of Hazelwood, the average additional amount Tasmanians will pay for electricity in 2018 and 2019 will be an extra $204—the highest of any state. That is because Tasmania's consumption level is twice that of Victoria and the highest in the country. The government clearly does not care about that.

The government has clearly misled the Australian people when it said in 2013 'no cuts to pensions'. But in every budget since being elected the government has wanted to cut pensions and hurt pensioners. Let's not forget the 2014 budget. How could you forget that? I think every pensioner in the country remembers that one quite clearly. The former member for North Sydney, with his legendary age-of-entitlement-is-over budget, set the scene for the government's attacks on pensioners. They have attempted. Some things they have succeeded at and some they have failed at in their attacks. They tried to cut pension indexation; planned to freeze assets and income tests for three years from this year—that is achieved; planned to increase the deeming thresholds for the income test to $30,000 for single pensioners and $50,000 for pensioner couples combined; abolished the seniors supplement from 1 July 2014; make the seniors health care card harder to qualify for; cut $1.3 billion in support to state and territory based seniors concessions, which goes then to the energy concessions that some of the states put in place, like in Tasmania; abolished the dependent spouse rebate for people aged 60 or older; abolished the mature age worker tax offset; abolished the pensioner education supplement.

What a litany of attacks the 2014 was to pensioners. Let's also not forget the then Treasurer's comments that not one pensioner would lose their pensioner concession card. Now they are restoring it. They got rid of it for some pensioners; now they are bringing it back and now they are celebrating it. It is quite funny—I heard a comment from the member for Gilmore, who said—I think it was yesterday—that she celebrated the return of the pensioner concession card. Woohoo! Great! Where was she when it was removed? Where were those members on the other side when that was removed from those pensioners? In 2015 they stood there, when they did a dirty deal with the Greens party to cut the pension from around 330,000 people in our country by changing the pension assets test. People ask me about that all the time in my electorate: 'Why did you change that?' I am very proud to say, 'It wasn't us!' It was not Labor—it was the government. It was the Liberal coalition government doing a deal with the Greens. Pensioners have long memories, and this is one change they will never forget.

They still want to increase the pension age to 70. Australia will have the oldest pension age in the world. Due to the nature of work for the people in my electorate, many people will be physically unable to work to that age. I am reminded by the words of pensioners Ray and Trudi from Turners Beach in my electorate, who I have previously spoken about in this place. It is worth reminding the House of these comments:

It comes as no surprise to see what the present government is trying to do to people of our age, after telling us for years to save and sacrifice towards retirement, they try and change the game and change the rules. The one thing that gets under our skin is the changing of the retirement age. We think it is disgusting that people who have to work hard all of their lives may now be expected to work until they are 70 years of age. We may have voted them in last time, but it was a first and last time. They have made blunder after blunder, and if what people at that time know, if that's what they are going on, it will be the last time we see this coalition government in.

Despite all the dishonesty, the attacks and the dirty deals, the government is still going ahead with the cuts to the clean energy supplement, and Braddon pensioners are paying the most, as I clearly state, with the amount that they pay out of their income towards electricity. This cut will see them lose $14.10 for a single pensioner a fortnight, or $365 a year. Couples will be worse off by $21.20 a fortnight.

The Prime Minister wants to paint himself as the pensioners' friend—almost like Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. But he is more like the Sheriff of Nottingham, taking from the poor and giving to the rich. This legislation is not before the House because the Prime Minister wants to help pensioners; it is here as a result of a deal the Prime Minister did so he could get part of his company tax plans through the Senate. If the Prime Minister could really be trusted as the pensioners' friend, we would have heard from him and other members on the other side in 2014, 2015, 2016 and the first part of 2017—he would have been there, to be the friend of pensioners. But there was not a word—except, of course, to vote in this place to cut pensions.

Let us look no further at their record. Labor will support this bill. But I can tell you: we will continue to fight for pensioners in Australia, in my electorate, and oppose the abolition of the clean energy supplement. And it will give me great pleasure to stand here in this place and go through all of this again, for every member on the other side, to remind them of why, in Tasmania, this will be a bad, bad thing. This will mean that pensioners in my electorate and my home state will suffer over the cold winters. They will have their power disconnected at higher levels than we have seen. And those on the other side are sitting there and obviously taking no notice of what I am saying, which is just terrible.

You also have to ask yourself: what are the Liberal Tasmanian Senate members saying on this? Nothing! Where are they? If they are there for the people of Tasmania, which has such a disproportionately high number of people on government payments, what are they saying? Nothing!

You just have to look at the budget. It was absolutely deplorable for the state of Tasmania. It was the forgotten state. I have just been in the Federation Chamber and I will make here the same comment as I made there: I need to give every member of the coalition a map of Tassie! It hasn't seceded to Antarctica yet!

But let us look at what they are doing, those Liberal senators: absolutely nothing. Pensioners should not be forced to freeze over the winter months just because this Prime Minister has warped priorities.

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