Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I present to the House a petition signed by 1,051 petitioners and approved by the Petitions Committee for presentation to the House.

The petition read as follows—

To the Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives

This petition of certain citizens of Australia draws the attention of the House to the failure of measures adopted in The Social Security and other Legislation Amendment (Pension Reform and Other 2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 to guarantee an adequate quality of life for those receiving the age pension.

We therefore ask the house to:

1. Increase the pension rate from 27.5% to 35% of total male average weekly earnings

2. Ensure that proper and improved, culturally appropriate, healthcare measures for pensioners are prioritised, including medical, dental, optical, hearing and pharmaceutical services.

3. Significantly increase the level of funding for aged care services, including culturally appropriate services.

4. Introduce quarterly indexation of all pensions and welfare payments.

from 1,051 citizens

Petition received.

This petition draws the attention of the House to the failure of measures adopted in the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Pension Reform and Other 2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009 to guarantee an adequate quality of life for those receiving the age pension. The petitioners specifically ask the House to: one, increase the pension rate from 27.5 per cent to 35 per cent of total male average weekly earnings; two, ensure that proper and improved culturally appropriate healthcare measures for pensioners are prioritised, including medical, dental, optical, hearing and pharmaceutical services; three, significantly increase the level of funding for aged-care services, including culturally appropriate services; and, four, introduce quarterly indexation of all pensions and welfare payments.

This petition has been organised by Australian Pensioners Voice. The founders of Australian Pensioners Voice—Gino Iannazzo and Vic Guarino—have been indefatigable campaigners for the best interests of pensioners. They have been understandably horrified by the government's proposed changes to pension indexation, its plans to introduce a co-payment to visit the doctor and its plans to raise the pension age. Of course there would be people listening to the plea of these pensioners for an increase in the pension, for more funding for aged-care services and for quarterly indexation of pensions who would say that we cannot afford more support for the elderly. We regularly hear expressions of concern from the Liberal Party and from right-wing commentators about workforce ageing and the accompanying idea that the diminishing number of workers is going to be left with the burden of carrying a population grown old and grey. This kind of thinking and rhetoric lies behind the government proposals to increase the retirement age and/or reduce the income and support being received by pensioners and retirees.

It is true that the workforce is ageing. What is not true is that this is a problem. I refer the House to a report prepared for the Monash Centre for Population and Urban Research by Dr Katharine Betts released on 28 April this year titled 'The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster?' Dr Betts' report points out that figures about the number of retirees compared with workers fail to state the full workforce participation picture, which needs to take into account how many children there are and the proportion of women who are working. If present rates of labour force ageing and participation continue, the proportion of the total population in the labour force will fall from the present level of 53 per cent to around 44 per cent by 2061. But this level of participation is nevertheless higher than the 42 per cent we had back in 1966. Back in 1966 the nation was thriving and yet even 50 years from now we will have a higher participation rate than we had back then when there was no talk of a small workforce carrying a large out-of-work burden.

Moreover, although there were more baby boomers born in the 16 years between 1946 and 1961 than there were in the 16 years earlier, between 1930 and 1945, all of the 16-year age groups younger than the baby boomers are more numerous than they were. Baby boomers do not form a unique bulge in the population python. Given that we have hundreds of thousands of people who are out of work, workforce ageing and retirement means that the unemployed get a chance to get a job. If we did not have or do not have older workers retiring then the chances of young people or the long-term unemployed getting a job fall accordingly. Workforce ageing will solve unemployment and, if you genuinely want to solve unemployment—and not everybody does—this is a good thing.

Finally, talk about population and workforce ageing devalues older people and their ongoing contribution, financially and as carers, mentors and role models to society. It is regrettable that scaremongering about population and workforce ageing is not only used as a battering ram against social security in general, and pensioners in particular, but to devalue the sense of worth of older people who deserve better. We need to recognise the real and ongoing hardship faced by pensioners and retirees dealing with real cost-of-living pressures. We have seen rises in electricity, gas, water and council rates far outstripping inflation, driven by the infrastructure requirements of population growth. It intrigues me that the government is always ready to draw attention to the cost of population ageing but always silent on the cost of population growth. Australian pensioners deserve better.