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

I indicate to be helpful that the latest information I have to hand is that Senator Fielding is roughly right about the number of pensioners affected by the original Liberal proposition. About 913,000 pensioners would receive some benefit from the proposition. That leaves about 2.7 million people on pensions, carer payments et cetera with nothing as a result of that measure. So it is clear that it is not a fundamental reform; it is a political stunt that goes no way to addressing the vast majority of people who rely on these payments. It is providing something, yes, for 900,000 people if it was to be implemented, but it is doing nothing for the other 2.7 million. That makes the point that this is knee-jerk, populist, but it does not fundamentally deal with the serious public policy issues.

While I know that people argue that some groups are more in need than others—and I am sure that that is true, although the arguments about which groups and why, whether or not they are the people in public housing, in the private rental market et cetera, are not convincing—the reality is that those same base rates are being used to set all of these benefits and they flow from the original age pension. What we are doing is breaking from that long established position. If the Liberal proposition was to be supported, they would be saying ‘Well, these 900,000 will get the benefit, and the other 2.7 million, tough luck, even though that linkage was accepted for the 12 years we were in government. Suddenly, after nine months in opposition we have decided that’s not relevant anymore; it’s not important anymore; there’s no basis for that anymore. We’ve had this conversion on the road to Damascus.’ Senator Coonan says to me, ‘Well, just fix it. In nine months fix what we failed to deal with in 12 years. It’s all your problem, don’t blame us, you fix it.’

Well, that is easily said. It is much more complex than that. Anyway, we have had those debates. I do not want to labour the point, but we are talking about another 2.7 million people who would get nothing. The Greens are trying to pick up some of those concerns with adding in some other categories, and Senator Fielding, if you like, has doubled it by adding those who are in a partnership—double or nothing. On the latest information I have, if we support the package as amended by the Greens and Senator Fielding, I think we are adding something in the order of $5.7 billion a year. It is $5.7 billion a year, just like that, because they think it is a good idea, without any understanding of the ramifications throughout the aged-care sector, the housing sector, the tapers, the family payments allowance impacts—the thousand impacts that come from a change in the base rate of the pension. ‘Oh, and by the way, it is going to cost $5.7 billion a year.’ That is the sort of depth of consideration that has been given to these issues. ‘Throw in cuts to petrol prices and all those other things; it is very easy.’ Unfortunately the opposition has adopted this position of being all care and no responsibility very quickly. As someone who did 11 hard years in opposition, it does not work like that. You don’t actually get any credit for it. You actually have to—