Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was out last week in North Lakes in my electorate talking to people about the budget and how it will affect them. I had this chance with the Treasurer, who popped up to North Lakes. We met with older people in North Lakes and spoke a little bit about how the budget affects them. One of the issues raised when meeting with older constituents was about Labor's new retirement tax and how that will affect grandparents. One lady—Diane—has a separate account with some money in it from the sale of her house, but apart from that all her income comes from dividend imputation. She was saying that she'll lose all of that, because at the moment it's less than $18,200 a year, which is a real concern. Our government will enable pensioners to keep an extra $300 per fortnight, through our pension work bonus initiative, without it affecting their pension.

The other real concern was around electricity. They were very concerned about federal and state Labor's 50 per cent renewable energy target being rushed out too quickly and sending their bills skyrocketing, which is a real concern. It was especially good to listen to them. I appreciated their feedback, and I'll be passing that on down here this week.