PRIME MINISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
OPENING ADDRESS BY THE PRIME MINISTER
AUSTRALIAN PENSIONERS' FEDERATION
BIENNIAL CONFERENCE
MELBOURNE 11 OCTOBER 1989
Noreen Hewett,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to come here today to open the
Biennial Conference of the Australian Pensioners'
Federation. I take pride, too, in being able to report to you on what we have achieved, together, on behalf not only of the age
pensioners of Australia but also, in a very real and direct
sense, for all Australians.
For 80 years, the age pension has been the centrepiece of
the Australian Social Security system.
By 2009 which wil. l be the centenary year of the Australian
age pension that system will be faced with its greatest
challenge yet: meeting the impact of the post war " baby
boom" with its vast implications for service delivery and
funding.
The challenge then is clear: Australians, as we move into
the next century, must make sure that there is secure and
adequate income support for older people.
with the retirement incomes policy we announced in the last
Budget, I can tell you we have set in train a comprehensive
and farsighted response to that challenge.
It is a strategy for the future not a random series of
barzdaids; it is a policy that goes beyond the short-term to
help secure the long-term future of Australia arid of our
retired people; and it is a statement of relevance not only
to those people who are currently retired but those who are
still working and planning for their retirement.
Many of you will be familiar with the specifics of the
announcements we made in the Budget, so I don't want just to
recite the litany of changes and improvements we have made.
What is of more value, I believe, is to put those changes in
the context of the broad sweep of social justice policies we
have pursued since we came to office in 1983.
Let me give you one statement that summa'rises the whole web
of anomalies and injustices that had been allowed to develop
prior to 1983.
In 1983, millionaires were taking the pension, while
superannuation was the almost exclusive preserve of a
minority of the workforce in white collar employment.
What a perversion of priorities that situation representedthe
very antithesis of social justice.
My Government has been able to put the priorities in the
right order ensuring that people who don't need to be
supported by the taxpayers aren't, so tRWatTeople who do
need support receive it, and receive it in greater measure
than ever before.
we have been able to do this by rejecting the piecemeal
approach of our predecessors and achieving instead, through
consultation and co-operation with groups such as your own,
a comprehensive incomes policy that embraces wages,
taxation, superannuation and social security measures.
Fundamental to that process was the reimposition of the
assets test which of course does not apply to the family
home.
We endured what I could politely describe as a certain
amount of political heat from the decision, and we stuck to
our guns.
These days, as a result, the assistance we do provide to
Australia's senior citizens is focused on those who
genuinely need it and not even the Federal opposition, for
all its other hesitations and inconsistencies, now seeks to
revert to the injustices of the past.
Now, with the reforms of'our last Budget, that other gross
anomaly I referred to the limited coverage of
superannuation is also being remedied.
Super now covers more than half the workforce and will
ultimately cover everyone employed under an award.
The implications of this for the retirees of the future are
enormous. It will mean income security for hundreds of
thousands of Australian retirees who can start to plan now,
with confidence, for their days after they leave the
work force.
The pension will always be there for those who need it but
it will be supplemented by a range of superannuation
options.
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That will dramatically reduce the uncertainties senior
citizens would have otherwise faced if they had to rely
solely on the pension in an era when, as I said at the
outset, the greying of the baby boom will be placing an
enormous drain on the social security system.
Of course our commitment to the age pension and our
determination to protect the current generation of
pensioners was thoroughly demonstrated in the last Budget.
Over the course of the next year, pensioners will receive
between $ 11 and $ 36 a week extra as a result of the various
measures we have taken.
we are bringing forward CPI adjustments; we increased and
indexed the amount of tax-free income pensioners can
receive; we dramatically lifted and indexed rent assistance;
and, with the April 1990 pension increase, we will not only
meet, but exceed, that historic target of lifting the
pension to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings.
And we are implementing a massive three stage reform of tax
and social security that will mean from 1995 that no age or
service pensioner part-rate or full-rate will pay income
tax. in other words we have built a comprehensive retirement
incomes policy based on four key criteria: adequacy,
fairness, security and sustainability.
People who can provide for their. own retirement now have the
appropriate incentives to do so, while those who need the
age pension will receive the protection and security to
which they are fully entitled.
This achievement in the area of retirement policies
illustrates our broader achievement throughout the social
security system. As Brian Howe has said recently, what we
have been about is wherever possible removing the need for
people to rely on the safety net but where they need to
use it, we have ensured it provides real comfort and
assistance. I take the opportunity of pointing out the reciprocal
agreement that we have signed with the Italian Government
that ensures elderly Australians born in Italy receive their
full pension entitlements a small achievement perhaps in
the full sweep of Government policy but a very crucial one
for those who will benefit from it.
The age pension is, of course, only one aspect of aged care
in Australia.
Equally important f or older Australians is personal
independence, their right to make decisions about their
lives, about where they will live, and if and how they will
be cared for. 2401
older people need the security of knowing that there are
adequate support services where they need them.
The record of my Government in this area is a strong one.
We spend almost $ 2 billion each year on aged care, including
at least $ 1.5 billion for residential care.
we have introduced reforms which have meant that
first, home support services are more available, of a
better quality, and are more accessible;
second, there are new residential care programs for
older people, giving them much more independence.
It is clear that older Australians don't want to be shut
away from the community: we all want to be part of things,
living where we have spent our lives raising families and
working. The Home and Community Care Program aims to reduce the need
for hostel and nursing home care by providing services to
people in their own homes: community nursing, home help and
personal care, home maintenance, meals on wheels, home and
centre based respite care, transport services, and
paramedical services.
There is also help for families and friends who provide care
for the elderly at home.
At the same time, for elderly people who simply cannot
manage at home, we have ensured proper planning and
equitable funding for hostels and nursing homes where people
need them.
For people who are in hostels, we are aware of their need to
maintain their dignity and rights. We are working on a
charter of resident's rights and responsibilities, and a
care contract between residents and service providers.
To sum up then, let me say this:
I know that many of your members still find it hard to
manage on the age pension. But we have increased the
pension as far as is possible, and brought in additional
services to lessen the burden for the most disadvantaged.
By the middle of next year the age pension will reach more
than 25 per cent of AWE the highest level it has reached,
in terms of average weekly earnings, for forty years.
By September next year we will have trebled rent assistance
perhaps the best assistance that can be given to the least
well off group of pensioners.
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For older people who can continue to live in their own
homes, there is a wide range of community services., to
provide them with dignity and independence whatever their
income.
And for people who need hostel and nursing home care, much
has been done to improve standards, maintain their dignity,
and protect their rights as individuals.
For those who will reach retirement age in the coming
decades the policy framework exists to ensure the system
will deliver fair and adequate, as well as secure and
sustainable, income and community support.
My friends
The glib judgement is sometimes made that the gap between
rich and poor in Australia is increasing that the rich are
getting richer and the poor poorer.
~ Circumstantial evidence is certainly provided by the
conspicuous and spectacular way in which senior executives
in private enterprise have awarded themselves pay increases
far beyond any accepted wage fixing guidelines.
only last week you may have seen press reports of a study
into income inequality carried out by the Social Welfare
Research Centre a study in which Australia was compared to
seven other OECD countries in the years 1981-1986.
The press reports overlook the real problems in making such
international " comparisons", not the least of them being
that they don't take into account the most recent
information. In this case the European data was old, the
study relied on money income and did not include the social
wage, and it could not include the very significant changes
which have taken place in Australia since 1986.
Among these changes, I have already mentioned the
achievement of lifting the pension, by next April, above
per cent of average weekly earnings.
That in itself is a measure not just of improved wellbeing
for individual pensioners but of their improved relative
wellbeing in other words, a measure of diminis117gnt
expanding, income gaps in the community.
In the same way, the Government's relentless determination,
in co-operation with the trade union movement, to create
jobs is also ensuring that those who would otherwise be
completely unable to support themselves, are able to climb
up the ladder of self-sufficiency and economic security.
Since we came to office, we have created more than
million new jobs including 828,000 since May 1986. 2403
At the same time, the number of people on Unemployment
Benefit has fallen from more than half a million in May 1986
to 368,000 a fall of 34 per cent.
The most striking omission from any study of income
inequality that concludes in 1986 is, of course, the
introduction in December 1987 of the Family Allowance
Supplement the cornerstone of our attack on child poverty.
Nearly 180,000 families now receive FAS, compared to less
than 30,000 families on Family Income Supplement in
June 1986.
FAS was increased in July 1989 to meet benchmarks of
adequacy, and will be increased annually.
Family Allowances were also increased substantially in July
1989, and will be indexed annually.
As a result of tax cuts and increased family payments in the
last year, living standards, particularly for low and middle
income families, have been further improved.
For example, a single income family with two children
received an increase in after tax income of $ 23.50
equivalent to a wage increase of $ 40 a week.
So Australians are entitled to ask that glib reports,
implying that nothing is being done to help the least well
off, at least include all that is being done and all that
has been achieved, to lift the burden of hardship in this
community. Those who seek to question this Government's commitment to
real improvements in social justice should consider this
fact: in a time of necessary economic restraint, we have
increased spending on social justice programs, as a
proportion of total Government spending ( excluding public
debt interest) from about 50 per cent in 1982-83 to a
projected 58 per cent in 1989-90 or, in 1988-89 dollars,
an increase of nearly $ 9 billion.
The standard of living for the poorest Australians has been
protected and improved;
Access to essential services has been widened; and
Rights and opportunities for disadvantaged groups have been
strengthened.
That is a record of achievement -real assistance targeted
to those who need it that stands in the starkest contrast
to the empty phrases of the opposition.
Just look at the record on pensions. In the seven years the
Liberals were in office they cut the pension by more than
two per cent in real terms. While we have been in office we
have lifted the age pension by around 8 per cent.
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We have set the basis for an adequate standard of living for
Australia's senior citizens into the 1990s a minimum that
Australians should now expect in their retirement.
We've delivered it if the Opposition has any care and
compassion for Australia's senior citizens, they should
support it.
I close by reaffirming my Government's determination to
continue the work of making Australia a fairer and better
place for us all.
And I look forward to working closely with your organisation
and with all pensioners towards that goal. 2 405