Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. I ask: what will next week bring for Australia’s pensioners?

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 Longman for his question and for his very hard work on behalf of more than 23½ thousand pensioners in his electorate of Longman. From this Sunday, Australian pensioners will receive their long overdue and much needed increase to the pension. Those opposite had 12 long years to deliver an increase to the pension, and they refused to do so. They refused to deliver this much needed increase to the pension. It has been left to this government to deliver what pensioners have needed for so long.

Over the next two weeks, pensioners will be receiving this much needed increase to their pension, on their usual pension pay day. These 3.3 million pensioners—aged pensioners, disability support pensioners, veterans, income support recipients, those on the carer payment—will receive, because of this government’s commitment, a much needed pension rise. All pensioners will get letters from Centrelink setting out exactly what they will receive. Single pensioners on the maximum rate will receive an ongoing increase—not the sort of temporary increase we saw from the previous government before elections. From this government they will get an ongoing increase of $70.83 a fortnight for singles on the maximum rate. These are very significant reforms that will make a difference to the living standards of single pensioners.

Couples on the maximum rate of the pension combined will receive $29.93 a fortnight. Once again, this is a much-needed increase. All of us on this side of the parliament know that pensioners have been doing it very, very hard. I have spoken to many pensioners, but one pensioner to whom I spoke just last week comes to mind. I will tell everybody what this pensioner had to say to me about what this increase will mean for her. She is a single pensioner on the maximum rate and she will be receiving an increase of $70.83 a fortnight from next week. This is a lady who is very active, very involved, and she says that she is going to live a much more social life as a result of this increase. She will be able to go out with her friends, enjoy exercise classes and do some of the things which other people take for granted. These are the practical things. These are the changes that pensioners are going to see as a result of this very significant increase to the pension. It is going to mean a better life in retirement for those pensioners, because this government have done what pensioners have been waiting for for a very long time. We have delivered this very important increase to improve their standard of living—especially for those in retirement.