Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Energy Assistance Payment and Pensioner Concession Card) Bill 2017. We will be supporting this bill, but we really want to put on the record that on this side of the House—not just us, but our Australian pensioners—we are sick and tired of seeing pensioners being used as political footballs at every budget. It is unfair to treat people in this way. Our pensioners in our community have paid their taxes all their lives. They have worked hard most of their lives in jobs that were labour intensive—because of the technology in the days when they started work. Some have even fought in wars to protect this country. They have built the foundations that we live our lives on today, and I think we live pretty good lives here in Australia. We owe it all to the generation before us. We owe it to them because they built this country, and now we treat them with great disrespect. Also, these are the people who put in place, a generation before us, our workers' rights—the rights that we take for granted. We see many other things that affect the hard-earned work that they have done, including the rights that they put in place during their working lives. We see penalty rates being cut, for example. They may not be affected directly because they are now on a pension, but it irks them and it upsets them because they think of the standards that they had when they worked and they look at the standards that our workers have to put up with today. All these things affect these people.

In my electorate I speak to pensioners. I have one of the oldest electorates in the country. Over 20 per cent are 65 or over. So I speak with lots of pensioners on a regulator basis, and they tell me that they are sick of being used as political footballs, especially by this government, at every budget. They are made to feel like they are a burden, welfare recipients, a cost and a nuisance, which is not correct, because these people built the foundations that we live our lives on today. Certainly on this side of the House we will not have it. They have contributed to our society and to our economy, and they deserve better. So, while we welcome the fact that we will get the very, very modest one-off payment that is outlined in this bill, it certainly does not compensate for the cuts and the hardships that pensioners have had to endure under this government over the last four years.

We remember in 2013 in the lead-up to the election when the member for Warringah, the former Leader of the Opposition and then Prime Minister, made a promise that there would be 'no cuts to pensioners', and 'no changes to the pension'. What did we see in the very first budget? A whole range of cuts. I will go through them now. The Abbott-Turnbull government's record on pensions is nothing short of a disgrace when it comes to our pensioners. In every budget since they have been in government, they have handed down their proposed cuts to the pension. And that is four budgets in a row—not one; not a one-off; not two; not three—at every single budget there has been some detrimental effect on our pensioners. This government has no shame when it comes to doing over our pensioners.

While they are doing this, at the very same time, they are proposing a $65 billion tax cut for the top end of town, the richest people of Australia. Yet our most vulnerable and those that have built the foundations that we live our lives on are enduring cuts. I do not see how that is fair. We have a government that throws the word 'fairness' around continually. You will hear it during question time, in speeches and in press conferences. They must be tracking it through polling that the word 'fair' or 'fairness' resonates well. You hear it continually. But what is so fair about cutting from pensioners and giving a $65 billion cut to Australia's richest people? There is nothing fair in that—absolutely nothing. Not only does the Turnbull government want to raise the pension age to 70, he is making it the oldest pension age in the developed world. Where are the jobs anyway where these people will work? And how do we expect people, especially people who work in labour intensive jobs, to keep on going until they are 70?

They also want to scrap the energy supplement—and this is the heart of this bill—making pensioners, carers and Newstart recipients $550 a year worse off. And this comes on top of the harsh cuts to pensioners as a result of the government's new assets test that we saw earlier. They are constantly nipping away at the eligibility for pensioners. With the energy supplement making pensioners, carers and Newstart recipients $550 a year worse off—can you tell me: how can that be fair? This government is hanging our pensioners out to dry. They do not deserve to be treated so poorly.

Schedule 1 of the energy assistance payment—let's have a look at it. What is Schedule 1 of the energy assistance payment? I will tell you what it is. It is just a smokescreen. It is a smokescreen to distract us from the fact that this government still wants to abolish the energy supplement. They still want to abolish the energy supplement which assists people with their energy bills. We know that energy bills have quadrupled since they have been in government. They have quadrupled in terms of the costs of supplying energy to your house.

The government will carry on about the carbon tax and a whole range of other things, but what have they put in place? What have they done to ensure that our pensioners have some form of assistance and to ensure that we have a market out there that keeps the prices down? They have done nothing about it. They are happy to bang on about coal and a whole range of other things, but energy prices have gone up—which is hurting our pensioners—because the government have not acted to keep us up to date with renewables and a whole range of other things that are taking place around the world in markets and industries that we are falling behind in.

If the government were really interested in ensuring that energy prices were down, we would be looking at a different mechanism to ensure that there are more players in the market with a mix of renewables and a whole range of other energy suppliers in order to have a good cap on prices so pensioners in my electorate and everyone else's electorates are not hurt. The government will not get away with pulling the wool over the eyes of our pensioners. They can see through this and they are already raising it with me and with other colleagues. As I said, these pensioners were hardworking once upon a time.

In this bill, the government are offering a one-off energy assistance payment of $75—a one-off of $75—and at the same time are taking away $365 a year from single pensioners by removing the energy supplement to new pensioners. My maths might not be 100 per cent but a one-off $75 payment is not the same as a $365 in assistance every year to help pensioners to keep up with increasing energy costs. They are offering a $75 payment and what was in place was $365 in assistance every year to help pensioners with the increasing energy costs—and, by the way, the government have done noting to ensure that energy costs do not keep on rising. These sums just do not add up. As I said in other speeches, it is like setting a fire, being the arsonist, lighting the match, and then calling triple 0 and getting the fire brigade and wanting a pat on the back because you are a hero. Well, it does not work that way. Our pensioners will see through this and they will vote accordingly at the next election.

We on this side will oppose the government's attempt to remove the energy supplement from the most vulnerable Australians who will be affected by this. The 2017 budget confirms that the government still want to cut this energy supplement. The Prime Minister likes to say that he is all about fairness—and I spoke about that—but there is no way that there is anything fair about this. They talk about fairness, but at the same time that they are hitting the most vulnerable people—cutting from them; taking away from them—they are proposing, pushing and trying to bully through every day that $65 billion tax cut to Australia's highest earners, richest people and big businesses that pay very little tax to begin with. If the Prime Minister really cared about the living expenses of vulnerable Australian, he would no be trying to abolish this energy supplement. The payment will be $75 for singles and $62 each for each member of a couple.

Schedule 2 provides for the reinstatement of the pensioner concession cards. I have to say that the government's previous attempt to get rid of the concession cards was very mean-spirited. But, thanks to the efforts of Australian pensioners around the country who lobbied their MPs—and I suspect many on the other side—the government has been forced to reinstate it. The government has been forced to overturn a very cruel measure that it had in place, after failing to keep then Treasurer Joe Hockey's promise in his budget where he said that no-one would lose their Commonwealth pensioner card. This shows that when we work together—and Australians do work together—we can actually achieve results. Many, many pensioners in my electorate have written to me and spoken to me at street corner meetings and at forums that we had on this issue to tell me just how unhappy they were about their concession cards.

When the changes to the pension asset test began on 1 January 2017 many pensioners ceased to be eligible for their payment and they also lost their concession card. I am really happy to say that almost 1,000 pensioners in my electorate of Hindmarsh who lost their pension following this government's asset test change will get their concession card back through this bill. I am very pleased about that, because many of them wrote to me. I received many emails and had many discussions and phone conversations about this. Through the campaign that they ran, they have managed a good result.

It certainly does not make up, though, for all the other cuts that they have to endure. Let us face it: this government is only doing this as a result of pressure that we on this side of the House and pensioners have exerted on them. The let us not forget that, when the changes to the asset test were introduced, the then Treasurer Joe Hockey promised that those who lost their pension as a result of the change would be able to keep their concession card. That turned out to be a furphy, didn't it? To quote the words of the previous Treasurer Joe Hockey,:

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

Was that true? Certainly not. Instead, former pensioners were issued with healthcare cards and Commonwealth senior healthcare cards, which did not provide the same benefits.

I was asked by the media yesterday about the polls. My response was that you do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that this government is travelling so badly. When you have a senior member of the government promising that Commonwealth concession cards will not be taken away and then they get taken away, it is no wonder they are in a state of disarray. For example, without that pensioner concession card former pensioners are not able to access vital government funded hearing services, and we all know that the minimum cost would be around $3,000 for hearing devices from different states. It depends on where you are. The loss of the pensioner concession card is a very cruel double blow to many former pensioners with modest incomes. I am very pleased that pressure from this side and pressure from pensioner groups around Australia has changed the government's proposal. The government must think Australia has a very short memory. As I said, I am sure these people have not forgotten, and you cannot pull the wool over their eyes.

I remember in 2014 when the government tried to cut pension indexation and leave pensioners $80 a week poorer over 10 years. This is the stuff that has been happening while at the same time they are still pushing that $65 billion tax cut for the high-end of town. I also remember when the government tried to reset the deeming rate threshold—changes that would have negatively impacted half a million part pensioners around the country. These are not people on wealthy incomes; they are part pensioners. They rely on a part pension and a bit of modest savings that they have. I also remember when this government changed the assets test and shifted the goalposts on hundreds of thousands of pensioners who had carefully planned their retirement. All of a sudden they had the goalposts changed. At that point 100,000 retirees lost their part pension or pension and many more had their payments reduced—many hundreds in my the electorate, who lobbied me and still do.

God forbid for a retiree to dare to aspire to an overseas trip. If the PM has his way, their payments will be cut after six weeks overseas. It is even worse for migrant pensioners or people who have settled in Australia from overseas. If you are a pensioner who was not born in Australia and you wanted to visit family and friends overseas, you pension will be reduced in line with the time that you have lived in Australia as though your contribution was worth less. They say these cuts are gone for good. (Time expired)

See this speech in context