Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

In 10 minutes time the minister at the table, the Minister for Human Services and Digital Transformation, should open his remarks with just one thing and one thing only, and that is: 'I'm sorry.' He should be apologising on a number of different fronts for the failure, under his watch, to look after people who, at a point in time—after they've worked hard, they've paid their bills, they've raised their families—expect that they will be able to get their age pension. They've been denied that for a host of reasons that go to the way in which this government, under this minister, has mismanaged the whole process of age pensions.

It's not enough that we've seen under this government the changes to the age pension, for example, and the way in which older Australians were hit with changes to the asset test. Labor had to block the Abbott-Turnbull government cuts to pension indexation in the 2014 budget. Mind you, after they went to an election saying there'd be no changes to pensions, they then tried to bring those in, breaking a promise they had made to older Australians in the lead-up to the 2013 election. They did that and we blocked the Abbott-Turnbull government's attempts to reset the deeming rate thresholds, changes that would have seen half a million part-pensioners made worse off. It wasn't enough.

Ms Burney interjecting—

The government would not know what it means, Member for Barton. It was not bad enough. On top of that, for ages they refused to relent on a plan to axe the energy supplement, a payment designed to help vulnerable Australians with the cost of energy. It wasn't enough that they did that. They tried to abolish it three times. Labor opposed the abolition of that supplement, stood up for pensioners and vulnerable Australians. And it was only at the last minute, in a desperate attempt not to save older Australians but to save themselves that they decided they would change their minds. It was not because it was the right thing to do for older Australians but because it was the only thing they could do to try and save themselves.

On top of that, the government then had the plan to have the oldest pension age in the advanced world, making people retire at the age of 70. Time and again, we on this side said we would oppose this. Time and again, those opposite said they would not budge. And what happened? In the aftermath of trying to save themselves after that chaotic week in August when they repeatedly tried to knock off the former Prime Minister—and in the end they got there—they decided they would drop that plan. Again, it was not because it was the right thing to do by older Australians but because it was the only thing they could do to save themselves in the process.

Now what are we seeing? After all that, now what we're seeing is people applying for the age pension and not being able to get it. As some age pensioner applicants have said, this paperwork should only take a matter of weeks. See the length of time people are being forced to wait to get their age pension. A lot of my colleagues repeatedly tell me what they're experiencing. The minister has received feedback in this House on those delays. We are getting it all over the place, even on platforms like Facebook, where people have reached out to me and said, 'This is what I'm experiencing,' or, 'It took 12 months to get paid.' Some examples I was given include: 'I'm eligible for the pension and was told to apply at least 13 weeks before my date of eligibility because of the waiting times people are experiencing to get their pension,' and 'I've been waiting since June for a response on my healthcare card application; it's pathetic,' and, 'I've waited months and months and on the phone for hours at a time,' and, 'It's a shame that us baby boomers are ageing and causing financial difficulties for the government.' This is how they feel. Others say: 'They should have been more prepared'—how true; the government should have been more prepared—and, 'They assessed my mum incorrectly for aged care placements nine months ago and we're still waiting for the refund.' These are the types of systems that have been put in place by this government, and people are being held up as a result.

I've mentioned the experience where people have been told to wait and have been waiting for months to get the pension. I'm going to get to the stat that the government lives by, that it says it will assess these pensions by. Before I get to that stat, you might have noticed this week, in a desperate attempt to save itself, the government's been coming up with all these good news items. The one stat I just want you to bear in mind is the one that the member for Kooyong, the Treasurer, has been going on about. He's been talking it up quite a bit. I'm going a long way on this but bear in mind this stat is what the government have been talking themselves up on. The Treasurer said:

The Coalition Government recognises the importance of cash flow for small businesses. That’s why the Government is setting an example by paying our bills on time. … now the Government will be required to pay invoices … within 20 days

That is a good figure, and it's the right thing to do. That's good.

Let's go to pensioners. Do you know what amount of time the government set themselves to pay a person who applies for the age pension, who is on a low income and who is waiting for access to the pension to be able to pay their bills and meet their needs? They're told by this government—not 20 days, no—49 days. They tell people to wait 49 days, but the reality is people wait for six months to a year—18 months on some occasions—because this minister can't get his act together. Mind you, that KPI of 49 days was increased from 36 days to 49. They even had to go longer, because they couldn't pay people on time, which is an absolute disgrace.

When we put that to the government in estimates their own departmental secretary said: 'We're clearing through this. Thousands per week, we're clearing. We'll get through this in no time.' Wrong! People are still being forced to wait, and they're being forced to wait right now, before Christmas. Minister, what are you going to say to those age pension applicants who want to have the certainty of their pension and have their bills paid before Christmas but are still waiting? Maybe they have the temerity, the outrageous ambition, to want to buy a Christmas present for their grandkids with some of the money they get but are forced to wait and dig into their savings because of what you're doing. The answer from those opposite is: we're putting more jobs on. Wrong! They've cut jobs. On top of that, a media release the minister put out the other week said, 'We've put on 2,750 jobs.' What he didn't tell you is they're all contractors being brought on. Instead of putting on their own people, they've been cutting jobs and putting on people who are working for less than the public servants and who are costing the Commonwealth more. That is what's happening. Do you know what the most disgraceful thing is? In defending that decision, the minister said of the public servants that he oversees: 'The contractors are more efficient than the public sector.' You owe an apology not only to age pensioners who've been held up but to your public servants. How disgraceful it is that you say to your own public servants that they aren't as efficient as the contractors! Those public servants are then getting calls from the public, who say, 'We don't want to talk to you; we want to talk to the contractors.' You owe them an apology for what you have said to them. And then, tough guy that he is, he says he's got a report to back him up. Why won't he release the report? What does he do? He says, 'I've got a report that says they're more efficient,' but he won't release the report. It's disgraceful that you would hold vulnerable—

Mr Keenan interjecting—

Then don't quote them, Minister. Don't quote the report. If you don't have the guts to release it, don't quote it. You owe age pensioners an apology. You owe your own public servants an apology. If you knew the decent thing to do, you'd give up your job because you've failed those pensioners. (Time expired)

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