Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a question for the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Will the minister update the House on how the government is assisting with the cost-of-living pressures for Australian pensioners and also advise the House of any responses?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for his question. He certainly does understand that these are hard economic times for many Australians, and that particularly includes almost 29,000 pensioners in Bendigo. Those pensioners in Bendigo, like pensioners in other parts of Australia, are finding it difficult to make ends meet, with the costs of groceries and the costs of other bills continuing to go up. As he knows and pensioners know, it certainly has been very difficult to manage the household budget. We have certainly made some modest steps to help our pensioners meet those increased costs of living with the Economic Security Strategy. The $4.8 billion that is going into lump-sum payments for pensioners will certainly help.

These payments are certainly needed to help pensioners cope with cost-of-living pressures, especially after the 12 years of neglect by the former government. Last night the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development released a report card on poverty, revealing the former government’s shameful record on older Australians. It reveals that Australia had the fourth highest rate in income poverty of the elderly, and during the time of the Liberal government there was an increase of 4.6 percentage points in income poverty of the elderly. Under the Liberals, for singles over 65 the poverty rate in Australia was a staggering 50 per cent. A staggering 50 per cent of people over the age of 65 were in a very serious state of poverty, the third highest level in the OECD. This of course is a searing indictment of the opposition’s record in government on older Australians. We know, thanks to Mal Brough, that when they were in the cabinet they ignored the needs of older Australians and rejected a proposal to increase the pension.

Even though there is this damning report on the efforts of those opposite for older Australians, just today we learned that the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate is saying—and I am sure the Prime Minister will be interested in this—that he has never agreed with the Economic Security Strategy. In other words, that must mean that he wants to take the lump-sum payments off all pensioners. Unlike the Liberals, of course, we intend to make sure the lump-sum payments happen. We know that the Leader of the Opposition said that he was not going to quibble, he was not going to argue with the government’s Economic Security Strategy. Obviously the quibbling is well and truly underway by the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate—well and truly quibbling out there.

A correspondent from the Sydney Morning Herald, Annabel Crabb, really nailed it yesterday with a headline: ‘They don’t call me the Vicar of Quibbly for nothing’. That is certainly the advice from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Turnbull interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition seems to think that this is just funny. In case the Leader of the Opposition thinks that people are complimenting him on his quibbling with the government’s economic strategy, I would actually refer him to some remarks from individuals who have been corresponding on a news website. This is from Garth, who really seems to understand exactly where the Leader of the Opposition is. This is from Garth, writing on a news website, and I am sure people will agree with this:

Maybe Malcolm is having another each-way bet. Make up your mind, Malcolm—

Garth says—

You’re either with the rest of the world in dealing with the financial crisis or you’re against it.

Another person says:

It’s hardly surprising that the merchant banker is firing from the lip.

And so they go on—all of them recognising that the Leader of the Opposition just quibbles with the government’s efforts to make sure that pensioners and others who are doing it tough get the support that they need.