Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to quote a few of the lobby groups, because it is quite interesting to hear what they have to say. People with Disability Australia says:

The announcement by the opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, that seeks to increase the single age pension ... lacks insight and consideration of other groups of people who receive the same amount of social security through other pension payments. Queensland Advocacy Incorporated says that it is extremely disappointed that the federal opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, has ignored disability support pensioners in his belated pension increase bid. Why is the coalition continuing to ignore people with disability and condemning them to a life of abject poverty, isolation and heightened vulnerability?

Family Advocacy says:

Brendan Nelson’s acknowledgement of the difficulties of living on a single age pension forgets the poorest group in our society.

The National Council on Intellectual Disability says:

The Liberal and National parties have completely lost sight of the financial situation of people with disabilities and those family members who provide ongoing support to them by calling only for an increase in the age pension.

The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia says:

Dr Nelson spent Tuesday speaking with hundreds of veterans at the RSL’s National Congress yet the next day appears to have forgotten about us.

Not only is Dr Nelson’s plan economically irresponsible but it also forgets about the most vulnerable in our society. It shows in the end that what this is really about is a stunt. First we had his stunt on petrol; now we have his stunt on pensioners—raising the hopes of the most vulnerable. The economic circumstances around it are unbelievable. If you look at what Dr Nelson has rolled out of the last 12 months, we are talking about a $4.9 billion black hole in the budget. That is in a year, and it equates to 23 per cent of the surplus.

When you ask anyone in the coalition, ‘How are we going to pay for this?’ the answer is, ‘We will just take it out of the surplus.’ I remember the last 12 years of coalition government. They used to worship the surplus. Now they say: ‘We will just spend it. It’s 23 per cent of the surplus. What does that matter?’ The truth is that you had 12 years to do something about it and you did nothing. When Mal Brough took exactly the same proposition to the cabinet, it was knocked back. This is just a cheap stunt to try and save Dr Nelson’s own political credibility. (Time expired)