Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why are pensioners worse off since the election of the Rudd government?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the budget that we brought down in May, the government provided three additional things. The first was a one-off cash bonus of $500 a year, and I contrast that to the previous government, which did that for the previous three financial years on a one-off basis but in the preceding eight years of their term in office did not do that. That is the first point. The second is that the government also increased the utilities allowance from $107 a year to $500 a year and made that permanent into the future. That was not done by the previous government in previous budgets. The third thing was to increase the telephone allowance, as we foreshadowed prior to the election. The consequence of this is that the overall increases to payments for pensioners in that budget were something in the order of $900 per year once you put those various additional payments together. That is a figure approaching $20 per week. Furthermore, as the government has already indicated, consistent with the recommendations put forward by the Senate inquiry into cost-of-living pressures on pensioners, which was supported by both government and opposition members, that there should be therefore a full review into the long-term structure of pension payments into this country. That is what is currently underway.