Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

These are Labor members signing up to this statement, Senator Forshaw. It continues:

Workplace relations reform in turn led to increases in pensions.

It is true: it did. I continue the quote:

Similarly, since the introduction of compulsory superannuation in 1992, the rise in the level of the guarantee in 2002 and the growth in real wages, superannuation balances have inexorably grown.

That was the finding of the entire Senate community affairs committee—that there had been an increase in the real value of pensions during the life of the Howard government as a result of our decision a decade ago to link pension levels to increases in male total average weekly earnings. That was our finding. It was not a matter of debate or argument; the committee readily came to that conclusion. Why? Because the evidence was absolutely overwhelming.

Senator Forshaw said in this debate, ‘What did you do with the budget surplus?’ In part we spent it increasing the pensions of older Australians, the age pension. What is more, not only did we do that but I can tell you by how much we did it quite precisely, because again the committee looked at this question. It found:

FaCSIA has estimated that the indexation of the pension to MTAWE has increased age pension expenditure by $12.99 billion (in December 2006 dollars) than it otherwise would have been. Figure 3.1 highlights the growth in the real value of the pension compared with rises in the CPI. Members can clearly see how much bigger the pension was under the Howard government by virtue of its decision to link it to MTAWE.

That is the evidence that the Senate committee came to. So let us put to one side this completely false claim that the previous government did nothing about increasing the living standards of older Australians. However, the committee did not find, despite those measures, that the position of older Australians was satisfactory. That is why we supported the move by Jenny Macklin last year to have an inquiry into the living standards of older Australians. That is why we supported this report saying there had to be action on this question and why today we stand here prepared to take that responsibility seriously by virtue of a $30 a week increase in the pension rate for single pensioners, an issue which was found by the inquiry to have been seriously a problem for those pensioners facing that particular rate of pension.

We have put on the table positive action on an issue which you people said only 12 months ago was urgent, was necessary to act upon. We have proposed that action and we want you to support us in taking that action—real, tangible action to raise the living standards of older Australians. (Time expired)