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

I think it is important that I respond, because this is quite a revelation to me. Certainly Senator Coonan indicated earlier that the $30 would be additional to the bonuses. We now have the proposition that she will not guarantee the bonuses, so carers and others might be up to $40 a week worse off under the proposition she has just outlined, which I think will be of concern to those carers. But, if we take it that the average pensioner is currently receiving the $500 bonus and the $500 utility allowance, they are receiving $1,000 under the Rudd Labor government budget which the opposition spokesman will not guarantee—sorry, no longer the opposition spokesman; like former Minister Abbott, she seems not to want to retain an interest in these areas. It would seem to me that what the Liberal Party are now saying is that they are supporting a $30 a week increase for a small number of the pensioners—the 900,000 on the age and veterans affairs pensions—but are refusing to guarantee the equivalent of the $20-a-week rate that pensioners got from this government as a set of bonuses and through the payment of the utilities allowance. So, potentially, what we are hearing now is that the Liberal Party’s proposition is that we increase the base pension rate by $30 and take away the equivalent of $20 a week which we pay through the bonus system. Originally Senator Coonan indicated to the Senate that the $30 a week pension increase was in addition to the payment of those allowances. In her last contribution Senator Coonan said that she could not guarantee that and that that was a question for review.