Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his comments reported in the Herald Sun today that:

It would be, I think, almost impossible to continue to live on the current age pension.

Why is the Prime Minister refusing to provide timely relief to pensioners, whom he acknowledges are struggling to survive on what they get now?

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

Firstly, the group of pensioners we are concerned about covers the 2.2 million pensioners, carers, widows and others who are not part of the recent leadership related proposal put forward by the member for Bradfield. That is the first point. The second is this: we have acted as a government consistent with the following recommendation. Let me read it to you. It says:

… recommended the Government review the suitability of the base pension levels through economic analyses of amounts required to achieve at least a modest standard of living for retired Australians.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

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

The interjection from the member for North Sydney was,  ‘Another committee’. This recommendation was the unanimous final report of an inquiry by the Senate backed by you, Joe—backed by him, backed by everyone on his side, including the member for Warringah. Pardon us for actually doing what we all agreed to do as a consequence of this particular Senate inquiry.

Furthermore, I draw the attention of those opposite as to who initiated the Senate inquiry last year: the Labor Party from opposition. We initiated it from opposition, the then Prime Minister, Mr Howard, agreed with that inquiry proceeding. Its recommendation was to go to the heart of the base pension level for the future. That recommendation was supported by the Liberals and by the Nationals in the Senate. Labor have acted upon that and now opposition members say they do not agree with their own party. That is what they are saying.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Nelson interjecting

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

Leader of the Opposition, are you saying that the Liberals and the Nationals in the Senate did the wrong thing?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It goes to relevance. This bloke is supposed to be the Prime Minister, not the chief bureaucrat.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dickson is warned that he cannot come to the dispatch box and put points of order in an inappropriate manner.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Adams interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know the member for Lyons has great affection for the member for Dickson, but he is not assisting. The Prime Minister is responding to the question, but he will respond to the question through the chair.

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

The measure which is being reviewed at the moment, comes out of the Senate inquiry which was backed as a course of action by those opposite, except when they ran into a problem with their own internal leadership politics last week and decided to change tack. That is what all that was about.

Secondly, in terms of the budget and providing assistance to pensioners now, again, I draw the attention of the honourable member for Warringah to what actually happened in the budget whereby we came up with not just a $500 annual bonus but on top of that an increase, from $107 a year to $500 a year, in the utilities allowance for pensioners, something which those opposite had never done in their 12 years in office. On top of that, we also increased the telephone allowance for pensioners. We put those three measures together. The member for Warringah’s question goes to providing assistance to pensioners now. What I am saying in response to that is that the measures contained in the budget add up to an additional payment for pensioners of something approaching $20 per week. That is what was put forward in the budget. That is nearly double that which was put forward by those opposite. That, therefore, provided us with a basis to continue with this particular course of action, which the Liberal Party and the National Party agreed to until they ran into leadership politics problems last week.

I conclude on this: again, for the benefit of those opposite, the reason that we on this side of the House are looking carefully at the total impact which this has on the budget and on all categories of pensioners is that every $10 a week increase in the pension results, across the system, in a further $2 billion per year to the budget bottom line right into the future. Therefore, it is important to get this reform right—a reform we have been working on in our first nine months in office that those opposite spent the previous 12 years not working on at all.

But on the 2.2 million carers, 2.2 million widows, 2.2 million veterans, 2.2 million sufferers of one disability or another, who are omitted from the proposal put forward by the Leader of the Opposition last week, I draw his attention to public statements, including one by People with Disability Australia, dated 11 September, entitled ‘Disability pension rise needed now’—

Opposition Member:

Opposition member interjecting—

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

He said that they supported it. The disability pension rise needed now goes to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition did not provide any provision at all for the disability pension in his statement last week. I suggest the Leader of the Opposition actually reads the statement. Furthermore, there is a statement by Queensland Advocacy Inc. which deals with another group which were not the beneficiaries of the proposal put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. Then there are statements by Family Advocacy, the National Council on Intellectual Disability and the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia and there is a statement from Carers Australia entitled ‘What about the hardest working families of all?’ On top of that, we have a statement from the Brotherhood of St Laurence entitled ‘Increases to income support need to be fair for all’.

I table each of those statements from those various community organisations. The reason I do so is to go back to the core point: because the member for Bradfield is challenged on his leadership, he has changed the position put forward by the member for Wentworth only a few months ago on the age pension. He changed it last week in a real hurry and, as a consequence, missed out 2.2 million carers, recipients of the disability support pension, widows and others. Labor intend to undertake this program of reform thoroughly. We have commenced that program of reform and we intend to prosecute it fully, those opposite having had 12 years to deal with this problem. Their inattention to it for 12 years demonstrates how much they really cared about this, which was not at all.