Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Yet again, with this ministerial statement, the government has proved to the Australian people that it is a government paralysed by inaction, putting off decisions with endless reviews and completely devoid of ideas to deliver certainty and security for pensioners and carers. The statement, so far as I can tell, contains nothing new. Frankly, I question why it was given, for it tells us nothing more than we already knew in the May budget. Prior to that, there were of course press leaks of budget cuts that would seriously affect our most vulnerable citizens—our seniors and carers. Both the current Prime Minister and his Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Ms Macklin, hastened too slowly, may I say, to try to take the pressure off the government by assuring the pensioners and carers that the bonuses would be paid this year but would be subject to review as part of yet another review. Frankly, the only reason the government recanted on its proposals to cut the bonuses this year was the action of the opposition, backed by a very strong outcry from both pensioners and carer groups in the community, reflected in widespread media coverage.

Under the coalition’s so-called ‘neglect’ that has been referred to in the statement, the Howard government increased employment by up to 2.2 million new jobs, increased real wages by 21 per cent and doubled the real net worth per head of every person in the country, on average. We actually paid carers and seniors bonuses that were not paid before, and we did it for four years. We increased pensions to 25 per cent of MTAWE, male total average weekly earnings, which had never been legislated before. In the ministerial statement, the minister describes what the Howard government did for the last four years in paying bonuses to seniors and carers as ‘giving them no financial security by paying annual bonuses’. I would have thought that there was a lot more financial security from an annual bonus that you know will be paid and that lets you plan and purchase items from a lump sum that are simply unaffordable out of a pension than the uncertainty and insecurity which is inherent in the kind of review that the minister is now proposing. The promise of a review is, in short, a cruel blow to the most vulnerable.

The carers and seniors of this country had more security under the Howard government than they had before and, frankly, than they will likely have in the future under this Mr Rudd ‘review everything’ way of governing. Why was there no indication or even a glimpse of a policy on seniors and carers before the last election? If the then opposition truly cared about these very special Australians, surely they would have outlined prior to the election their policy views on how their payments should have been handled. But, no, silence reigned supreme on this issue, including at the 2020 Summit, after they had become the government. In fact, there was no real criticism of the Howard government’s actions in relation to annual payments to seniors and carers prior to the election. By tying any future policy to the outcome of the review that the minister has announced will report to her by next February 2009, the minister is again exposing carers and seniors to an uncertain future, quite the opposite to the claims in the ministerial statement.

Frankly, how can you trust this review? And how can you trust this government? What carers and pensioners can trust is the record of the coalition, which is real. We did not just talk; we delivered. Between 1996 and 2005 the real disposable incomes of the poorest 20 per cent in our society—the carers, the pensioners and seniors—increased by 25 per cent. There was a 25 per cent real increase in the effective income of carers and pensioners, and those statistics come from the independent and authoritative National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra. When we were in government we consistently delivered a better standard of living to Australia’s carers and pensioners. This is not the last word. I believe they deserve better. We in the opposition will do all we can to ensure that their financial futures are sustainable and to recognise the struggle they have to make ends meet. They are entitled to feel very let down by a do-nothing government addicted to reviews but paralysed when it comes to real action.