Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

The minister has already indicated that he does not understand the budget, and he has just tried to say, as he said in question time this week, that pensioners are better off under this government. I have to say to the minister that that will come to haunt him. The Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Fifield, actually said in Senate estimates just a little while ago, 'The decision to cut the indexation of the pension was put in place in an effort to slow the rate of pension increase.'

I am sure the minister is aware of the report done by the Australian Council of Social Service that shows that pensioners will be around $80 a week worse off over the next 10 years. That is $80 a week over 10 years and, of course, that is because, as the minister himself knows—

A government member interjecting—

I will just remind the minister of a quote I have from him from the Hansard of 20 September 2011 about the importance of using male total average weekly earnings to index pensions instead of using the CPI. At that time the minister—though he was not the minister then—said, 'This enabled pensioners to keep ahead of cost-of-living increases.' Exactly right. The minister got it back in 2011. Now, of course, what we see in the budget papers on page 203 is that the government is going to take $449 million off pensioners. That is what the budget papers say, and this was confirmed just yesterday by Senator Cormann when he said that the budget cuts will result in a cut to the pension.

The question to the minister is: who is right—the budget papers, which say a cut to the pension of $449 million; Senator Cormann, who says that the cuts will result in a reduction in the rate of increase to the pension; or Senator Fifield, saying that the cuts to the indexation of the pension have been put in place in an effort to slow the rate of pension increase? I would suggest to the minister that all of those comments by his colleagues are correct. What is the minister going to say to correct the misleading comments that he made on ABC radio and that he made in the parliament this week?

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