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

Well, if you know about that, Senator Pratt, then support the action. Come over here, cross the floor and sit over here, and do something about it. It is within your power. Allow your colleagues in the other place to exercise a free vote about what they think. I am sure plenty of them have constituents who are pensioners who are telling them that $30 a week right now—forget how it would affect a review—would be very, very nice to have in their purse or wallet when they go to buy groceries or put petrol in their cars every week. That is the challenge I put out to you: share the sense of mission you had when you initiated that inquiry last year, when you said there was an urgent problem facing Australia, to deal justly with the standard of living of pensioners. If you do that then you will support the motion we put on the table today to actually make a difference to the lives and standard of living of older Australians.