Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Ageing and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the call by the Nationals candidate in the seat of Gippsland, Darren Chester, to increase the age pension. The first Labor budget, released just five weeks ago, was a dismal failure, especially for pensioners and carers. What did they get from the government that, prior to the election, promised that it would ‘govern for all Australians’? One lousy word from the Treasurer in his budget speech and zero in the tax cuts.

Under pressure, the Prime Minister and Treasurer have since come out with some sort of vague promise on the never-never for pensions to be considered as part of the government’s tax review. That review reports back in 2010. This means nothing for pensioners for years, at best. At a time when we have a surplus of $22 billion, created by the strong economic management of the previous coalition government, the new Rudd Labor government could not find an extra cent for Australia’s aged community. So much for Rudd Labor’s promise to govern for all Australians! Yet another Rudd government review does not put food on the table or help pay the heating bills or put petrol in the car. Urgent assistance is needed now.

Darren Chester has supported a proposal by the National Seniors organisation calling for the age pension base rate to be immediately increased to help pensioners struggling with the increased cost of living. He has argued that the single age pension should be increased to two-thirds of the couple age pension rate, adding about $30 a week to the current single weekly pension of $273 a week. This proposal would provide immediate relief to some of the neediest in our society today: seniors, particularly single women, trying to make their pension cover the skyrocketing costs of living under the current Labor government. Darren also believes that additional support should be provided for carers of people with a disability and that Labor’s new taxes on transport, cars and alcohol should be scrapped as these increases will inevitably flow on to higher grocery prices.

What has been Labor’s response? The Prime Minister said last month that his government has done as much as it physically could to provide additional help for people struggling with the cost of living. But Labor’s candidate for Gippsland was even more callous, even more out of touch and even more pathetic: Labor’s Gippsland candidate branded the call to increase the age pension a ‘stunt’. In doing so, he has demonstrated that he will not fight for the people he aspires to represent in Gippsland. He has demonstrated that he will not act to fight for a fair go for pensioners. He has demonstrated that, if he is elected, he will not stand up to his Labor puppet masters; he will simply toe the Labor Party line. He will be just another out-of-touch actor in the Rudd stage show. A quitter is not what Gippsland needs. A Labor puppet is not what Gippsland needs. Gippsland needs someone with the courage of his convictions, someone who will stand up and fight for the people he represents. Gippsland needs a fighter like Darren Chester in federal parliament.