Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Sherry rightly interjects, indexation arrangements were first put in place by the Hawke government, and there were some changes made by the previous coalition government. Both sides of parliament supported an indexation method that best sought to assist pensioners to keep pace with the changing costs of living and to retain their relativity to the movement in average weekly earnings.

Those decisions were taken by successive governments to try to ensure that pensioners did not fall behind and that they were linked to a method that best reflected the movements in the costs that face pensioners and the movements more generally in the economy. Those decisions by successive governments were good decisions and over the years they have assisted pensioners generally to keep up with the rising costs of living.

What we do know is that, over the years, pensioners have increasingly found things are tough. They have certainly found things are tough since inflation started rising under the previous government and the cost of their food, electricity, gas and petrol has been going up. We acknowledge that pensioners are doing it tough and that many of them are finding it hard to make ends meet under the current pension arrangements. That is why in the first Rudd Labor budget we made an enormous down payment to try to assist pensioners with those costs. We put a $7.5 billion down payment on reform for pensioners, carers and people with disabilities. We increased the former government’s utilities allowance from $107 per annum to $500 per annum. So we added $400 per annum to the payment introduced by the previous government which was designed to assist pensioners to meet utilities costs. There was a $400 increase in the first budget of the Rudd Labor government designed to meet those cost pressures on pensioners.

We also paid a one-off $500 bonus in the budget to pensioners and we extended that payment to groups who did not previously receive it under the previous government. So we made a range of decisions. We also brought in the indexation of the measures and we have sought to provide what relief we can for pensioners. We have also indicated that we think there needs to be some fundamental reform to pensions.