Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Pension Loans Scheme Enhancements) Bill 2021 and I wish to take the opportunity to speak on the importance of this legislation to my electorate of Mayo. I've often said in this place that my electorate, the electorate of Mayo, has the oldest median age out of all the electorates in South Australia, one of the oldest in the nation. We have many retirees, both self-funded pensioners and part pensioners. Our retirees have worked tirelessly to prepare themselves for retirement, but for many the increased cost of living has made retirement challenging. This is a time when retirees should be living in comfort and not wondering how they can make ends meet.

This bill will provide Australians over the age of 65 with more flexibility to unlock equity in their homes to generate additional retirement income, through fortnightly loan amounts and lump-sum advances. No negative equity guarantee provides certainty that upon settling the debt individuals will not repay more than the equity in the property used to secure their loan, combined with the reduction in interest rates from 4.5 per cent to 3.9 per cent from January this year.

While I can appreciate that many in the sector, including National Seniors, are appreciative of the 3.9 per cent interest rate, I still believe that is far too high when we look at the official interest rates in this nation. It's my hope that more single homeowners should be able to achieve a high standard of living by tapping into their home equity. These changes to the pension loan scheme and guarantee will make retirement living more sustainable. However, there is much more that we need to do as a nation to improve the standards of living for those who are no longer of working age. For example, our aged citizens are required to navigate the impersonal telephone system, where a call to Services Australia is met with a recorded directory assistant. This telephone lottery requires the caller to listen to a number of options and then follow a convoluted path of numerous menus in the hope that a category will address their question. Invariably, the menu doesn't cover the question, nor is it clear to the caller, and it creates stress and frustration. Our seniors worked during a period when personal service was fundamental to good government and business practice and they deserve this experience in retirement. Confusing telephone systems, automated telephone systems and this continual force of older people to the internet and websites that take the user on a circular journey is just not good enough. A retiree should be able to call and have a real person answer the phone and get an actual answer. They deserve a service which is designed to meet their needs, not the faceless, unfriendly and anonymous delivery system that is currently provided. Whether you are looking for My Aged Care or Centrelink, it is all the same. It is frustrating and, for many, they don't call again.

We also need to overhaul the earning capacity restrictions for pensioners with a view to creating more flexibility and increasing the cap on how much they can earn so that pensioners are not penalised for working a few extra hours. Each day, thousands of senior Australians make their way across the country, often visiting regions that are desperate for workers yet many are not able to work, as doing so will reduce their pension entitlements significantly and the process of dealing with sporadic employment through the Centrelink system is cumbersome. It is a real disincentive and an enormous loss to the productivity of our regions everywhere. There are many pensioners who wish to remain in part-time employment or work additional hours but, because of the corresponding reduction in pension, it is simply not worth their while. Essentially, it is akin to being taxed at 50 per cent. Similarly, we have pensioner couples where a partner is unable to work due to illness or disability and current criteria do not allow for work earnings to be shared across both parties.

This bill provides a framework to enable retired and semi-retired Australians to improve their living standards by accessing equity in property. As not all retirees have equity in property, we need to look at another suite of options, including ones I have mentioned here, to allow pension-age Australians to live their lives with dignity. I have to say, we are looking at this and asking pensioners to use up the equity in their home but what we are not doing is looking at the actual pension amount and that is what we need to be doing. We also need to look at lifting the Commonwealth rent assistant amount for pensioners. There are too many, particularly older women, living alone on the pension, renting the property that they are in. They don't have any capacity for home ownership, their rent is increasing significantly, particularly this year, and there is nowhere else to live because vacancy rates are at zero in some parts of Australia. Particularly in my electorate, they are incredibly low. I think we can be doing far more for older Australians in this place.

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