Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. When will the Prime Minister stop watching pensioners and Australians on fixed incomes struggle to meet day-to-day bills and start doing something for these struggling Australians?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The government’s budget measures relating to pensioners and carers have been detailed on a number of occasions by the Treasurer and me. They cover what we have done on the utilities allowance and additional assistance with telephone connections—internet connections for older people—and a range of other measures as well for pensioners, carers and those on the DSP. There are some 2.2 million age pensioners in the country, some 700,000-plus on the DSP and a significant number of carers. These are a very important group of Australians and we are therefore working through not just the budget measures which have been delivered—and many of those payments have already commenced—but also long-term retirement incomes policy. We have put that before the Henry commission to ensure that that can be appropriately deliberated on in the context of overall tax reform which we need to do in the long term.

I find it puzzling that the member for McPherson would stand up and ask this question on the matter of pensions. When asked in a debate, ‘Was it Liberal Party policy to increase the base rate of the pension?’ the honourable member for McPherson said yes. It lasted as a Liberal Party commitment for about 30 minutes, because, when challenged about the new policy on pensions advocated by the member for McPherson, the member for Wentworth—the alternative leader of the Liberal Party—said about half an hour later, ‘Well, we have not got a policy to raise the base rate of the pension.’  So from Steve Price, ‘So you don’t have a policy that supports a rise in the base rate of the pension?’ the answer from Malcolm Turnbull was, ‘No, we have not formed a new policy.’ ‘The opposition is now endorsing an increase in the base rate of the pension’—that is what Margaret May said. ‘Yes, absolutely’.

What you had within one day was the classic flip, flop, flap we have seen from those opposite, not just on the question of pensions policy but also on the question of excise: 5c, 10c, 20c, no sense! On the question of the means testing of social security payments: do they believe in means testing or do they not believe in means testing? Are we going to have an emissions-trading scheme? Are we going to have one before the rest of the world? Are we going to have one with the rest of the world? Are we going to include petrol? Some say yes; others say no. The opposition—the Liberal Party—is an absolute shambles on every element of public policy.  Those opposite should use the July and August period to bring about some policy coherence, rather than embark upon the politics of smear and fear, which are their first courses of action.