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

I thank the senator for his question. He has, I think, correctly identified that this announcement today will provide significant financial assistance to pensioners in providing $1,400 to pensioners in a one-off lump sum payment. That does reflect a significant weekly average over the nine months, if you average out the payment, in the order of $35. I think he quoted $38. I have not worked it out exactly—that is not the basis of the payment—but it is of that order. We have also provided $2,100 as a payment to couples.

The reason we have done that is to reflect the fact that a number of authorities and Mr Harmer have indicated to us that it was the single pensioners who were most in need. What we have done in this measure is strike the rate at 66 per cent of the couple rate. So there is relativity there. Those payments, as I have indicated, will be paid on 8 December 2008. We will be seeking to bring legislation through the parliament to implement these measures and I hope to have the support of the parliament and the Senate in doing that.

We do, though, say again that this is about a down payment on what is required in the longer term, and what is required in the longer term is fundamental reform of the pension system. We have accepted that pensioners have been doing it tough—that is the reason we made it a priority in the May budget to provide assistance to pensioners. We made a substantial down payment in that budget for those on pensions and on disability and carer allowances. In addition to that, today we have made a further significant investment in supporting those people.

What we know is that the current system is not serving them well. We have initiated, as part of the broader tax reform review, a review by Dr Harmer, the head of the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, to look at what we could do in terms of long-term structural reform. We accept that the current system is not working properly, not delivering for those on pensions in the way it should and not guaranteeing security in their income, so we have said it needs fundamental reform. We have been arguing this for months now, and we have put in place the measures that will allow us to fundamentally reform the system.

On two occasions now, in the May budget and in today’s package, we have responded to the needs of pensioners and those on disability and carer allowances by investing in increased payments to them. That will provide enormous assistance to them during this financial year. But we have been making it crystal clear for months that we intend to structurally reform the pension payment system and that we want to do that in a considered way and a way that produces a good public policy outcome. That process is in train. When it is completed, it will feed into the preparation for the 2009-10 budget, and that decision will be announced by government when taken.

So, in answer to the senator’s question, the perspective of the government on this is that we are serious about long-term reform. We have now made a second down payment on assisting those living on the pension and other benefits, but the fundamental reform process continues, and long-term reform will be achieved. (Time expired)