Let’s recognise now that it’s time to ROUND IT UP
This week I offer the following summary of the pension review released yesterday – and our call for an immediate increase in the single Age Pension. We also believe the couple’s rate needs adjustment – and will release further information on this shortly. If you agree that an immediate increase is required, email your local member now and let them know. It is only by our continued pressure on parliamentary decision makers that this imbalance will be corrected.
The report
Released on 11.08.08, a discussion paper prepared by Jeff Harmer, Families Department, shows the following rates for the Age Pension:
Couples $456.80 x 2 fortnightly
Single $546.80 fortnightly (60% of couple’s rate)
OECD average means single rate is 63% of couples
Conclusion
Single Age Pensioners in Australia are paid at a lower rate than in comparable nations in the western world
The response from government
Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd (speaking from Seoul, South Korea) said the government “cannot solve every problem overnight”. Families Minister, Jenny Macklin, noted many pensioners “are struggling”.
The response from the Opposition
Shadow Treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, said pensioners were the “forgotten people”
AboutSeniors WEBSITE response
How many reports do any governments need to make a decision to stop Australian pensioners from being treated as third class citizens – and from living well below the poverty line?
Yet another report notes that some two million Australians are living on less than a modest level on income, and in particular, single Age Pensioners fare not even keeping up with their counterparts in other developed countries.
The government response which notes the struggle but refuses to countenance any increase in the short term is arrogant and inadequate.
The response from the Opposition is similarly arrogant – to note that the pensioners under a Rudd government are the “forgotten people” is to forget how truly forgotten they were under a Howard government with no realistic reviews or rises. On this subject both major parties share a lack of care and compassion.
AboutSeniors solution - ROUND IT UP
We call upon the Federal Government to immediately round up the single Age Pension fortnightly payment from $546.80 to $600. This extra $53.20 per fortnight will not go far when you consider rapidly rising fuel and food prices – but every little bit helps.
This increase would cost less than $1 billion per year (our sums say $886 million).
How does the government currently spend our money?
· $50 million for the next Tourism Australia campaign to be created by film director, Baz Lurhman. Do we really need to pay this director to promote his own movie?
· $12 million for a four year Grocery Watch scheme – highly unlikely it will last the year, let alone four.
Our response to the May Budget holds true. On May 16 we said:
“Why are we dissatisfied with this budget?”
Because, despite revenue of $319 billion, and expenditure of $292 billion, virtually no concessions have been directed toward the nearly two million Australians struggling to survive on the Age Pension.
The single Age Pension of $273 a week remains a disgrace. There is no excuse for this punishment of vulnerable older Australians - particularly those who do not own their own homes. AboutSeniors website will continue to press for a higher fortnightly payment for single pensioners.”
We repeat our commitment to the call for a higher fortnightly payment for the single Age Pension. If the Federal Government immediately adopted our ROUND IT UP suggestion it would cost the country (i.e. we taxpayers) .0027% of government revenue for the fiscal year, or .003% of planned expenditure. Given that most recipients have paid a lifetime of taxes, it doesn’t seem too much to ask.
Send an email to your local member to apply pressure for an increase now – not next year or next century.
Geoff’s Blog - Lighten up
The government has just unfulfilled one of its key election “promises”. Now you have to admire the way that our politicians go about making their promises. It’s more about perception than reality. The way the promise statement is made is crafted to give the impression that:
a) Give me the power and I’ll do something about this issue, or
b) I have a plan to deal with the issue
Well, we gave him the power and, the unfulfilling took place when the grocery enquiry was issued. (Note: Just as the Olympic’s pre-news was reaching a fever pitch). Worth a mention too, that Kevin 07 was nowhere to be seen and left it to a junior minister to announce the blindfolded results. Further, when questioned on the run about the report, he could only say, “I have a plan.”
Forgive me, but what is the plan? What journo asked Kevin about The Plan? No one. So here we are, with uninhibited grocery price rises and “a plan”. A plan to do what? The enquiry blamed the drought, international factors and commented on the need for more competition in the market.
But how blind can you get? The leading grocery retailer is an aggressive behemoth whose main concern (despite promoting “low everyday prices”) is their shareholders. Its moves in our local area are such that I can’t wait for Aldi to open next door. But even that even won’t solve the underlying issue. The price of goods from farm gate to supermarket involve so many layers-each taking their cut- that we consumers are the losers. And so we blindly go about our shopping looking for what we perceive as value having to deal with deceptive packaging and limited choice especially in smaller communities.
It occurs to me that we are all flying blind. Political Leaders, Grocery Enquirers, Shoppers. Whilst there’s people who see financial opportunity and profit substantially from our blindness. What we need is some genuine light on the whole process. We are unlikely to get it.
There was once, a long time ago, a man who, when passing by a beggar - a man born blind , makes the claim that he is the light of the world, and to demonstrate the proposition, engages in a remarkable act of healing. The man sees. Suddenly, the view of the world denied him becomes amazingly evident and after some heated discussion with the local religious teaches, finds himself in the presence of the teacher/healer Jesus.
What Jesus draws him to is that the important “seeing” is to recognize who he, Jesus is. From another place. Curiously at once outside the time and influences of this world and yet totally physically involved in them. In order to bring a seeing which is beyond physical sight to the moral and spiritual realities underlying our lives.
In our political and shopping lives there are realities behind the promises and the prices. The lust for power, status, the push for unreasonable profit. These are the things which need an independent external and eternal light shed on them. Whatever is going on in grocery, petrol or politics will not change until the Teacher’s words about the most important commandments for our lives are to recognise that we are responsible to a Creator God for what we do and that he wants the simplicity in our daily lives of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Now wouldn’t that be revolutionary for grocery, politics and petrol? It’s more than a promise or a plan. It is the solution.
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Copy of an email to luke.hartsuyker.mp Coffs Harbour
I want to express my disappointment with the current age
pension, I have paid taxes since I started work in 1955, and have only
been out of work for short periods of time as and when I chose to change my work
for the better, I was always under the impression we as seniors would be
entitled to a pension with part of the taxes we paid, but now find we
are treated as liars and cheats by Centrelink, and have to prove we are
being honest in our dealings, Aussie pensioners have no desire to cheat
the system, some of the imports may, but this is their way of living,
not the genuine Aussie!
Why is it that because one of a married couple, (I am 68 and cannot work,
my wife is 60 and is working (battling!) in aged care) Why must she have
to pay the bigger percentage of my pension? I report her earnings each
fortnight and my pension is cut back to blazes each fortnight, meaning
the value of her wages are reduced as a subsidy of my pension
My lifetime taxes should have provided for my pension, it should not have to be my wife!
She is not well enough to carry on with this work until she is sixty four and a half, her health is
suffering by doing this and will most likely cost more than her being on the pension now, as she well should be
I voted for this government for a fair go, so for God’s sake wake up to your bloody selves and be realistic, and let us have our fair share of the taxes we paid, the taxes that built Australia to what it is now, (’tho I shudder to think what it will be in the near future if this disrespect for the aged continues,)in all reality tho’ I suppose those of us entitled to pensions will soon die off, and the Superannuation that was too late for us will then take lift this burden from your shoulders
Brian
By Brianra on Wednesday 13th August 2008