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

I, too, rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2019 and to say that Labor opposes it. I say so because it's an unfair bill. It is a bill that attacks hardworking Australians who have worked all their lives. They've paid their taxes, they've contributed to this nation, they've built the foundations of this nation and now we're taking away from them—people who have worked so hard for us to be in the position that we're in today as the generation after them, through their hard work, through their blood, sweat and tears. Today what this government is doing is attacking those very people that have given us the benefits of the great Australian dream and great Australian life.

As I said, the bill is an attack on the most vulnerable Australians in our community. This is the same old government rhetoric that pensioners won't be surprised about. Because the history of this government from 2013 onwards at every single budget has been to attack and cut from pensioners, whether it be through the assets test, making them work longer or cutting their pension when they go overseas—a whole range of things have been put in place by this government which attacks pensioners. From 2013, that first budget under the Abbott Liberal government, through the Malcolm Turnbull Liberal government to the Morrison government, it's an unfair bill, and a bill that this side of the House will not stand for.

I want to put on record that we, on this side, are sick of seeing our pensioners being used as political footballs at every budget. It is unfair to treat people in this way. I know that pensioners in my electorate are telling me that they're sick of it. They've told me over and over again at street corner meetings and stalls that I set up at shopping centres. I hear it time and time again. They tell me that they've worked hard, they've done the right thing their entire lives, they've brought up kids and are now looking after grandkids. And what does this government do? It comes in and pulls the rug out from under them. They're made to feel like a burden by this very legislation before the House today. They're made to feel like a burden, a cost and a nuisance. That's what this bill is doing. We shouldn't have it.

These people, as I said, have worked hard all their lives. They've contributed to our society and our economy, and they deserve better. As I said, this is the history of this government: the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison's government record on pensions is nothing short of a disgrace. In every single budget the government's handed down, they've proposed cuts to the pension. There have been proposals for cuts to the pension at every single budget. They want to call themselves the friend of pensioners—that's what they were championing in the 2019 election campaign. The reality is that it's completely the opposite; they are the enemy of pensioners through these cuts. You can see it at every budget. This government wants to raise the pension age to 70—the oldest pension age in the developed world. If you're a bricklayer or a plumber or you've worked in manufacturing, your back is gone by the time you're 50, let alone 70. How are these people meant to work at that age? With manufacturing closing down in our state—we've seen the closure of GMH and Mitsubishi—the majority of those people are still unemployed or working in jobs with lesser pay and lesser conditions.

This bill proposes to rip over $185 million from the pockets of Australian pensioners. This will specifically hurt those people, and it will specifically hurt another group of pensioners—migrants who came to this country many years ago and made Australia what it is, a wonderful place to live, through their hard work and their commitment to Australia. It will particularly impact on older Australians who want to visit or go overseas for a holiday for an extended period. They may need to spend an extended period caring for family; they may have parents on their last legs; they may have children overseas who are having children themselves, so they want to visit their grandchildren or other relatives; or they may just want to go back to their homeland in their twilight years for a short time. What is wrong with that? You've worked your entire life, you've paid taxes, you've contributed to this nation and you decide to travel in your old age. That is the Australian dream. There is nothing more Australian than wanting to travel and spend time seeing other countries and doing other things in your old age. Why should those people be penalised by this government for doing what everyone else in this country has done for years? If they went to Brisbane or the Gold Coast or Cairns or WA, it would be fine. Why not overseas? What's the difference? It is their right—in the days they've stopped working because they've contributed and paid taxes all their lives—to be able to pick a place, travel to it and stay as long as they like. They've contributed and done everything for this nation. So this bill is extremely poor when it comes to looking after pensioners.

The portability of the pension is a cornerstone of the Australian social security system. Migrant pensioners who have worked hard in Australia and have built a life and a family here should be able to get that pension. Proposing to stop the pension supplement for pensioners who spend more than six weeks overseas is an attack on anyone that wants to travel overseas. This nation is made up of people from every corner of the world who migrated here—whether pre-war or post-war, refugees who have worked under the conditions and rules of the land—knowing that one day when they retire they may want to return and have an extended holiday, see family and just do the things that they couldn't do whilst they were having their life here in Australia. This bill will prevent that. It will prevent people from having the freedom to travel.

This will affect pensioners, especially in in my electorate, from the Greek community, the Italian community, the Chinese community and the Arabic community who spend time visiting family on a regular basis—and there is nothing wrong with that. As I said, they've worked all their lives—and many have been here for 50 years, 60 years, 30 years, 40 years—and they've paid their taxes. It is their right to have the ability to visit the people that they love—family they were estranged from because of poverty or war or whatever situation brought them here—and to spend time with them. Six weeks is a very short, minimal time. I know people who go overseas every few years for three months, and rightly so. They can afford it. They worked; they've got the money to do it. Why not? Why is this government preventing that? What is it that's so bad in that? No-one from the other side can give us the answer.

Returning home for an extended holiday is a dream for many older people—to spend time there with family and friends and to enjoy the things they enjoyed when they were kids, perhaps not seeing the poverty stricken land that they left but seeing it with the hindsight gained from having lived in Australia all their lives. It is wrong to do this to those people. Yet this government wants to take that very right away from them with this bill. They want to punish Australians who have lasting connections to their heritage in perhaps another country.

Cuts to pensioners are nothing new from this government. In every single budget, the Treasurer, this Prime Minister, tried to cut the pension and raise the pension age to 70. The government's own figures show this would have left over 563,000 Australians who are currently receiving a pension or allowance worse off. Over 10 years, in excess of 1.5 million pensioners would be worse off under this government. This government is hanging our pensioners out to dry, yet again, and it is the history of the last few years that this government's been in place. When these people should be enjoying their twilight years, they're fraught with fear that their pension will be changed, that there will be new legislation that will take something away from them and that they will be under attack. Why should they be living in fear? They've constantly been under attack.

This government will not be getting away with pulling the wool over the eyes of age pensioners and hardworking Australians. It shouldn't be able to do that, and it won't. The Prime Minister likes to say that he's all about the quiet Australians—he's the most out-of-touch PM in history with this bill. This nation is made up of people from every corner of the world, with a lifelong dream, for many of them, to visit their homeland and stay for three months, six months or maybe even 12 months, in many cases, and it is their right to do so. If the Prime Minister really cared about the living expenses of vulnerable Australians he wouldn't be trying this yet again, as we've seen, to deliver a pension cut.

It's sad to say, but this is a government that really has it in for pensioners. This government should think again. They have a very short memory. They will not get away with this. I remember in 2014 when the Liberals tried to cut the pension indexation and leave pensioners $80 a week poorer over 10 years. And I remember when this government tried to reset the deeming rate thresholds. Changing that would have negatively impacted half a million part pensioners. We also remember when the government changed the assets test and shifted the goalposts on hundreds of thousands of pensioners who had carefully planned their retirement. They had carefully planned their retirement, with a few assets—perhaps part pensioners—and that rug's been pulled from under their feet. Almost 100,000 pensioners lost their pension and many more had their payments reduced, many hundreds in my electorate.

Let's look back at 2017 and the attempt by this government to do the very same thing. They wanted to cut the pension after six weeks of being overseas, and here we are again with this same bill. They backflipped and said these cuts were gone for good. Well, they're not gone for good; they're here again today, because this government has it in for pensioners. There's one thing we know: you can't trust this government when it comes to pensioners.

What I see in this bill is a government that's still trying to make life harder for pensioners, for Australians that work their entire lives. This is not fair and it is not a reasonable bill. Lo and behold, these cuts haven't gone from the last budget: here they are again. In 2013 former Prime Minister Abbott promised no changes to the pension. That's what he said on the eve of the 2013 election: no changes to the pension, no changes to health, no changes to education. What have we seen? We've seen billions of dollars cut out of those three areas. But why the pensioners, the people we admire the most in our community, people who have worked so hard? Why are we attacking these people? It is not fair. We saw those broken promises, and we've seen them continuously. They couldn't be trusted then and they can't be now.

We on this side recognise that many Australians are doing it tough, especially pensioners. It's particularly true for income support recipients, such as old-age pensioners. History has shown, time and again, that the government doesn't understand them, it doesn't understand the fairness, and, if it did, it wouldn't be proposing bills like this here today.

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