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

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Does the Acting Prime Minister stand by her statement that it is impossible to live on the pension of $273 a week? With a $22 billion surplus, why won’t the government do something for pensioners right now?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for ageing for her question, and I would make the following simple points in return. Firstly, the member might like to investigate and find out that the pension has actually been the subject of indexation. Indexation measures were delivered this week and a proportion of the utilities allowance, $128, was delivered this week. So she may want to get her facts right when she asks a question. Point No. 2: the shadow minister for ageing uses the surplus figure. Maybe the shadow minister for ageing might like to reflect on the fact that she is a member of a political party that is determined to destroy that surplus and is acting in the Senate each and every day to destroy that surplus.

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

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I specifically—

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

Order! The member for McPherson will resume her seat.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! The point of order has been made with me on relevance. The Acting Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The second point is that it was the member herself who, in her question, raised the budget surplus. I am simply explaining to her a basic economic fact which members of the Liberal Party seem incapable of understanding. In the walk from the government benches over to the opposition benches they have lost every strip of economic credibility. They no longer seem to understand simple facts such as that they are on a course to punch a hole in the surplus. Had they won the vote in the Senate earlier today, $2.1 billion would have been ripped out of the surplus figure the member has quoted in her question.

On the question of the age pension, can I say to the shadow minister for ageing as follows: when the shadow minister for ageing was a member of the Howard government, the minister responsible for families and community services, the then member for Longman, went to the Howard cabinet with a proposal for an increase in the base rate of the pension and the Howard government rejected it. Earlier this year, when the shadow member for ageing said that she and the Liberal Party were committed to an increase in the base rate of the pension, she was slapped down and repudiated by the now Leader of the Opposition, who was then the shadow Treasurer. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition did not advocate an increase in the base rate of the pension until he came last week to sit in the chair of the Leader of the Opposition.

Compared with that track record, this is a government that is delivering practical measures. We did it in the recent budget. We delivered for older Australians a $500 cash bonus. We delivered for older Australians a $500 utilities bonus—and $128 of that utilities bonus has been delivered in the last week. Unlike the Howard government, which as recently as last year turned its back on Australian pensioners, this is a government that has said we understand it is tough being on the age pension. We understand that action is needed on the age pension. We also understand that it is important to get that action right—not a proposition that leaves two million pensioners out, as the proposition put by the Liberal Party did; not a proposition that was unconstitutional, as the Liberal Party’s proposition was; not a proposition that did not understand the intersections between the age pension and other parts of the social security system. This is a government that has already delivered practical measures to make a difference. This is a government that is proceeding in a responsible manner—both responsible in policy and responsible economically. The Liberal Party is committed to neither policy responsibility nor economic responsibility.