Old Age Pension
This was written by Jenny Macklin on 3/6/2008. If you are on the old age pension you should read this full Statement. I'm trying to find out what party will be more sympathetic to us and I'm guessing it's the Labor Party.
[i]......By the 1950s, pensioners had moved from having to report to their local post office to receive a cash payment to receiving a hand-written cheque; in 1962 the residency test was halved to ten years; in 1966 Aboriginal Australians were granted full rights to the pension; and in 1975 the right of appeal was introduced.
And the Whitlam Government's introduction of benchmarking the pension to workers' earnings has seen a doubling of the pension in real terms since 1972. In his landmark 1972 policy speech at the Blacktown Civic Centre, Whitlam committed Labor to 'raise the basic pension rate to 25 percent of average weekly earnings.' A benchmark first achieved in 1974.
In 1983 the Hawke Government's Statement of Accord agreed to maintain the basic rate of pension at or above 25 percent of average earnings, a commitment reaffirmed by the government's statement, Better Incomes: Retirement Income Policy into the Next Century released in 1989. A series of increases achieved this benchmark over the life of the Labor government.
Under the Hawke and Keating Governments the pension increased from 24 percent of Male Total Average Weekly Earnings under the Fraser Government in 1982 to 25.8 percent on leaving office in 1996.
In 1990 the Hawke Government introduced the bereavement payment equivalent to 14 weeks pension payable to the surviving member of a pensioner couple.
And in 1994 the Keating Government introduced the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.
Australia's Age Pension has endured through most of the 20th century and into the 21st century - 100 years of profound social and economic change, two world wars, a depression, recessions and booms - and, today, it continues its vital role in providing income support on the basis of need to older Australians. [/i]
http://www.jennymacklin.fahcsia.gov.au/statements/Pages/centenary_age_pension_05june08.aspx
No worries koko, I was listening to the radio in the car a little while ago and heard Bolt talking about Laurie Oakes' little skirmish with Mark Latham. Apparently Oakes ignored him at a media meeting and Latham said that Oakes cowered away from him, in other words he called him a coward. Oakes came back with the retort that when Latham was leader of the Opposition and almost became our PM, he was in Tasmania and was afraid to go out the front door and speak to the workers in the forestry industry, he ducked out the back door. Oakes said is was the worst show of cowardice he'd seen in thirty years. Bolt said and I agree 'Why didn't Oakes tell us about it?' It might have helped us determine just how crappy his character is. He didn't tell us about it because he was afraid to stick his neck out.