Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Disability and Carers (House)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Social Services. How many Australians will be affected by this government's plan to increase the pension age to 70?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. When the age pension was introduced, the average male life expectancy was 55. To ensure the pension was sustainable, the then Labor government moved to the higher pension age of 67. We supported that. Do you know why? Because, as the member for Lilley and the member for Jagajaga said at the time:

Increasing the age pension age is a responsible reform to meet the challenge of an ageing population and the economic impact it will have for all Australians.

… … …

Australia must move towards a higher pension age over the next decade.

And guess what the member for Fenner said:

A better approach would be to index upper age limits in all laws, …

… … …

How might age indexation operate in practice? One approach would be to mandate that all elderly age limits should increase by 3 months every year …

We won't be lectured by you on that side about what we will do for pensioners, because we want to make sure that pension payments go up. We don't want to raid the pensioners. We don't want to go after grannies with a tax grab. We don't want to do that. We want to make sure that everything we do is ensuring that pensioners will continue to get fortnightly payments which increase twice a year.