Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the changes contained in the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Pensions) Bill 2015. Let me begin by saying that Senator Bilyk is absolutely right: many of the government's budget measures stink—they stink. The attack on the poor through the government's removal of income support in the previous budget continued into this budget. There was its attack on health care by introducing the GP co-payment. There was its attack on our hospital system by starving our state hospitals of funding. It has attacked so many people in society—the poor, the sick and the vulnerable. But—and there is an important 'but' here—there are some areas of this budget that are worthy of support. The changes to pensions are a very modest improvement to the pension system. They are very modest but an improvement nonetheless.

Let's start with a bit of history about how we got to this position on pensions. This was the result of a 2007 cash giveaway by the Howard government. This was largesse in the middle of a mining boom and in the lead-up to an election, where the Howard government decided to increase the asset threshold to make pensions available to millionaires. That is what it was. It was a cash giveaway—and the Greens opposed it at the time. At the time we said, 'It's not acceptable that we give money to people who, over and above the family home, have more than $1 million of assets. That's not what the pension system was designed to do.' This measure reverses that position taken by the Howard government back in 2007 and opposed by the Greens then. It reverses it.