Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Scullion. It is a shame. It is not right, it is not fair and it is not on, because these are the people who should come first. The question was asked: how much will it save? I do not know about others in this chamber and I do not know about others around this nation, but I do not think it is our seniors who should be paying or having things stripped away from them. It is simply not right.

A comment was made earlier by one of the previous speakers about the proposed increase in the pension that the coalition put forward towards the end of last year. It was said that we ‘feigned’ interest. It is not feigned interest; it is very genuine interest, and those on the other side know it. To play politics with this, an increase of the pension, when these are the very people who need it the most! What have we seen from the other side? Nothing. Not a thing. There is nothing about increasing the pension, but, gosh, what do we see today? ‘Let’s just rip a bit more away from the seniors.’ It simply does not make sense and it is simply not fair. These are our parents and our grandparents who have built this nation, and they are the last people who should be getting targeted with this kind of measure that is going to do nothing but hurt those people who most need the assistance.

Let us look at what is actually going to be taken away from those seniors who lose their card. There are the prescribed pharmaceuticals under the PBS. The CSHC holders pay $5 per script. After losing the card, they are going to pay $31.30. With the card, a senior reaches the PBS safety net threshold when they have paid a total of $290 for their scripts. Scripts after that are free. Without the card, the threshold rises to over $1,000. As regards the seniors concession allowance, with the card, a senior is eligible to receive an annual allowance of $500 to assist with the payment for essential services for which pensioners are granted concessions. At the beginning of July, many of those seniors are going to lose their entitlement. The seniors bonus payment is going to be affected. If they lose their card because of the eligibility changes, they are not going to receive any further bonus payments. There is the telephone allowance and there are other benefits. There is a whole range of things here that our seniors rely on to help them through what are increasingly difficult times, and that is what is so incongruous about this. Things are getting more difficult out in our communities for people, particularly our elderly, and what is the government doing? It is taking assistance away from 22,000 of our seniors.

What I find even more interesting are potential future changes. Goodness knows where Labor are going to go in rolling back support in the future. We have no idea. But interestingly in some recent reports in the media we have seen it flagged that they may do such things as include the family home in the assets test, which is going to force senior Australians to sell their homes. They are going to include an increase in the assets test taper rates, which will reduce the incentive to save for retirement. They are potentially going to increase the income test taper rates, which will be a disincentive for people to earn additional money. These are the types of things that are being spoken about in the media at the moment. People need to be very, very wary of what this government is planning for senior Australians. I come back to the point that these are the people who need the assistance most, not least.

I mentioned the concession card earlier, so let us have a look at the concession allowance. One of the things that that applies to is reduced train fares. There is a particularly good example of this up on the North Coast of New South Wales, where I spend quite a lot of my time. It is interesting to note that the state Labor government closed the Casino to Murwillumbah railway line five years ago. I do not know how many of those in this chamber actually spend much time up there, but let me tell you that the public transport system is appalling, particularly as it is our seniors who are again the most affected. Seniors are least able to get themselves around. They need public transport and it is completely lacking.

I know that some of the federal Labor members of parliament would say that this is a state issue, but are there two separate Labor parties? Is there the ‘good’ federal Labor Party and then the ‘bad’ state Labor Party, which has not delivered this?