Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

thank you—a directive form of God then I think that I would need to reflect on what I had done wrong with my life. But I will take it as an unfortunate accident of scheduling.

One of the things that all of us have the privilege to do when we are in this place as new members—this is a funny way to start, but I was reflecting on it today—is select a few pieces from the parliamentary art collection for our offices. Being a junior backbencher at the end of the corridor, the books came to me quite near the end when, what some may say, the more famous pieces had already been nabbed by ministers and senior officers. The upside of that was they were quite generous in allowing me to pick three small pieces and count them as one to hang in my foyer. I gave some thought to those three pieces and determined that I would choose three pieces that reminded me of particular groups in my electorate for whom, above all else, I must do my utmost to remember in my service here.

Of the three pictures I chose, one was of a young person—you might say somewhere between 16 and 20—entering adulthood, drifting into the prime of life with everything before them, embodying the hopes of their families. Another, given my electorate, was a very famous photograph of migrants arriving in Sydney, because my electorate has the highest proportion of migrants of any in this parliament. The third one I chose was a beautiful, evocative picture of an older couple. It reminded me of my grandma and grandpa sitting in the corner of their lounge room in front of the piano with all the kind of knick-knacks of a life, as they were in their twilight years. The expressions on their faces are somewhat inscrutable but betray, I think, a degree of pride and resilience at whatever they have done with their lives. They look like working-class people—humble people.

So the need to look after pensioners and older Australians has always been something in the short time that I have been here that I have been determined to remember. Pensioners are amongst the most aggrieved of any group of people who come into my office or who I see in the community—and they do have strong competition. We could talk about the young, we could talk about those who are about to lose penalty rates or we could talk about any Victorian who is looking for a fair share of infrastructure. Certainly pensioners in this country have voiced to me the fact that they feel disrespected and that they feel blatantly lied to. I think former Prime Minister Abbott was elected on a promise of 'no cuts to pensions at all'. There is also a profound lack of recognition of the circumstances and understanding of the sacrifices that pensioners have made. This government's record with pensioners is truly appalling.

The 2014 budget was profoundly unfair. People who have lived a few years are smart. They spot scams when they see them. They understand and have seen before attacks on the vulnerable and what it means to give tax breaks to the top end when they are being asked to bear more burden. But the 2013 promise of no cuts to pensions has been well and truly broken in every single budget that those opposite have handed down. In 2014 they tried to cut indexation, which would have meant that, over 10 years, pensioners would have $80 per week less to live on. That is a cut. In 2014 those opposite also tried to change the deeming rates, which would have hurt 500,000 part-pensioners. They tried to cut $1 billion out of the pensioner concessions. In 2015, there was the shameful deal that the government, the Liberals, did with the Greens political party to hit 330,000 pensioners by changing the assets test—again, breaking a very clear promise not to do these things. That has generated an enormous number of complaints—bitter complaints. People still feel betrayed. Whenever I do a street stall, whenever I am at a railway station or whenever I am out in the community, I can be absolutely sure that not a time will go by without someone coming up to me to explain the impact that these part-pension changes have had on them and how they feel.

There are things worse than that—worse often than the dollars. I have had people say to me, 'It's tough but I can do without the $5, $10, $20 or $30, whatever I have lost that week, but please don't take the pensioner concession card off me.' This card provides discounts on a range of things, including, importantly in Victoria, discounts on local council rates and the cost to anyone needing to access Commonwealth hearing services. The discounts will vary from state to state. That was the biggest lie of all, because the government cannot even claim that it was one of those core and non-core promises: 'Oh well, we said a whole lot of stuff before the election, didn't we, Mr Abbott? Some of it we meant, because that was a core promise; but some of it we didn't really mean. We just kind of shot our mouth off. Or it was a case of nudge-nudge, wink-wink, so you can't really believe that.' I do not know how you are ever supposed to tell the difference. But this was not one of those promises. This was a promise made by the Treasurer when those opposite were in government. It was a very clear statement. You would think after all the heat of an election campaign—even if you take the core and non-core promise thesis—and you are in government that you could rely on the word of the Commonwealth Treasurer. Then Treasurer Joe Hockey said:

… anyone who currently has a Pensioner Concession Card will continue to receive a concession card that provides the same benefits …

But that was not true. People got a Commonwealth seniors health card, but there was no discussion about it with the states and territories whatsoever. Was this sloppy or deliberate? In the great game, we always have to guess: is it conspiracy theory or stuff-up? I usually back stuff-up. But with this, who knows?

The anger has got through to the government. They have heard through their backbench, no doubt, about the profound anger of pensioners when, on 18 January, they had to front up and pay their rates and pay more for getting hearing services and so on. So the government slunk back in here and, in the budget, finally fixed their damage and patched it up. However, it does not help the people who, in the last six months, have not had the card and who have had to pay more. There is no recompense for them. Nevertheless, it is a welcome though belated move, and we will vote for it to help the government fix its stuff-up. As a result of the changes to the asset measures, more people in the coming months and years, as re-evaluations and so on kick in, will lose the pensioner concession card. They are not going to be helped by this measure, and so the anger will continue.

In relation to the one-off payment, the member for Hughes had a little rift going through some of his remarks—why is this necessary?—until we tuned out. The fundamental reason it is necessary is that it was a deal dreamed up to get the company tax cuts through the Senate. It does not really have anything to do with energy, despite the rant. We have heard that rant before. If you could plagiarise against yourself and be accused of it, I am sure we could compare the Hansard of today to the Hansard with most of the other speeches and find very similar sentences.

This $75 is a one-off payment. So you get one $75 cheque in the mail—I do not know what that is going to do for many people—but what you lose every year if the government gets its way is $365 as the energy supplement disappears. The member for Lalor was the principal of a school. I do not know whether maths was your discipline. I would pretty sure that she would attest to the fact that $75 does not equal $365.

Opposition members: No?

No, it does not. Seventy-five dollars does not equal $365. So we have this pathetic little pea and thimble trick. I would love to go and negotiate or play poker with Senator Xenophon. I was in the parliament for his very first speech many years ago, because my friend Senator Pratt was speaking after him. I have watched him over the years and he seems like quite an amiable and reasonable kind of chap. Sometimes he even makes a bit of sense—rarely, but he does. But you would love to negotiate with him, wouldn't you? There are $25 billion of company tax cuts through—the first tranche of a $65 billion company tax cut plan—and, in return, $75. If the government gets its way, that $75 will go no way to making up for $365 every single year. The government must think people are stupid. Seventy-five dollars, when you give companies a tax cut of $65 billion—with $25 billion being the first down payment—is insulting. I bet they hope that the pensioners will forget the last four years of attacks, cuts and lies.

At this point, I really think that the government should thank Labor for saving them from themselves in the Senate in the last few years, because just imagine how angry people would be now if they had passed their legislation and had actually got their way. If they had had their hopes and dreams and their groundhog day and the full bore of the attacks which they had made on pensioners had actually got through this parliament, people would be well on the way to being $80 a week poorer in real terms. That is what the change in indexation means. Of course, it was Labor when in government that finally changed that indexation rate and did the right thing, but the government tried to take it away.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

You are right: Labor did give a pay rise to pensioners. On the deeming rates, 500,000 part-pensioners would be worse off if the government had its way. We are on track—this is one of the zombie measures that will not go away—to raising the pension age to the age of 70, which would be the world's oldest. This would of course particularly hurt blue-collar labourers, those who toiled all their lives in hard industries and whose bodies may simply not be able to work until 70. It is those people, who we represent, who would be most hurt if the government got its way with these changes.

Retirees going overseas for six weeks would not be very happy, because, if they went away for more than six weeks, their payments would be impacted. But, particularly for my electorate, it would be migrants who would be most picked on. But I think that proposal was one of the zombies that they finally found a way to kill in the budget. I do not think we will have to talk about that again—or at least until comes back at another time. But it would be the migrants who would be most picked on if the changes that the government wanted got through the parliament, because their payments would be impacted for the simple sin of spending time overseas with their families.

Imagine being an older person and wanting to spend time with your family in your twilight years, after having worked in the country and contributed. Or imagine caring for a dying relative who might be so rude as not to die within six weeks but actually linger around for three months or six months and you might want to spend those last days with them. Well, if the government had its way, they would be docked on their pension. Fortunately, we have saved the government from themselves on this by convincing enough of the crossbench to do the right thing, hold the line and not let these cuts go through.

But the biggest irony of all, from my experience of spending time in the community and talking with pensioners and people affected by all this, is that, overwhelmingly, these are good people. This is a generation that worked hard, whether they were born in Australia or whether they perhaps came here in the post-World War II migration—particularly the Greeks, Italians and East Europeans, who worked every day, who worked multiple jobs, who sacrificed everything for their kids, who saved a bit, who might have bought an extra house, as many of them saved and scrimped, so their kids would have a house as well and they would have something else to pass on. They made sure that their kids got an education and a better life while they went without. These are people who understand the importance of saving. They understand, more than any generation, I would venture—particularly the current lucky generation who have been born in an Australia that has never known a recession, with 25 or 26 years of uninterrupted economic growth. But this generation that the government is so determined to pick on with these changes is the generation that really understands the importance of saving. Many people have said to me, 'You know, I'd be prepared to do my bit.' It is not easy. We have heard what the member for Hughes said about electricity bills. We understand the pressures of rising health costs. We understand, for people who do not own their own home, the difficulties in the rental market and in simply staying in the community where your family is or where you know people, as rents rise. We understand those difficulties. But, they say, 'I would be prepared to sacrifice a few dollars in the national interest. I understand the need for budget repair, post the global financial crisis.' People might even be smart enough to thank the member for Lilley for helping shepherd Australia through in fine shape, using the strength of our balance sheet. So they might be prepared to sacrifice a few dollars—but only if they felt they were treated fairly; if they were not lied to by the government; if the government did not say one thing then do another; if only they felt that the top end of town were also asked to kick in; if they did not see this government, day after day, month after month, year after year, determined to fight to the death to protect the tax breaks for the top end.

Remember superannuation? We were evil socialists, picking on people who had saved for their own retirement—I mean, they only had $10 million in the bank; how outrageous it was to say that they should be made to pay just a little bit of tax on their retirement savings because they had $10 million! Meanwhile, the government's priority was to pick on pensioners.

Maybe we could take the current example—because Labor broadly pushed the government there. Maybe if we were prepared to just trim or change some of the negative gearing loopholes that overwhelmingly go to the top end of society, or maybe if we could change capital gains tax, where 70 per cent of the benefit goes to the top 10 per cent of society, then maybe we would believe that the government, the Liberal Party, was not still fulfilling its traditional, historical purpose of protecting those who have wealth, at all costs.

But, unfortunately for the government, pensioners see through this. They understand that they are first in line to have a few bucks ripped off them, while the government continues on its way, giving money away to those who need it least and protecting those who have wealth. Nevertheless, we will vote for this, because it is the right thing to do.

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