" Five years ago petrol was 80c a litre. Today it’s at least three times that figure."

I don't know what you're paying on the Gold Coast but those figures certainly don't match my observations of fuel prices.

Why no mention of the lack of action by a certain Liberal government for 12 years - which avoided any proper assessment of the pension issue and sought only to bandaid the problems pensioners confront by tossing 'bonuses' to them each year.

There are also pensioners that have a mortgage on their home and repayments have increased at an alarming rate.Even on a modest loan of say $100.000 it leaves little to the imagination what is left to live on.

Alison claims that "there is substantial alarm in Australia right now about a crisis among our pensioners". As a pensioner with pensioner neighbours, I wasn't aware of this. Given the long-term mechanisms for pension payments and the additional vote-buying supplements of recent years, I don't understand how this alleged crisis could suddenly be upon us, to the extent that only drastic and immediate measures will resolve it. Governments have an excessive tendency for off-the-cuff knee-jerk reactions to alleged crises, I commend this one for proceeding in a calm and measured manner rather than being panicked into reaction by people like Ms Hiscocks.

I would be very surprised if any age pensioner on current pensions levels were experiencing anything remotely resembling the poverty of my childhood.

Faustino
I dont know where you live but interest has gone up a"bit" and the Liberals did not much but Labor will be a big help in 2020?

"cruel and insensitive", "out of touch", "exploitation." Emotive words Alison, but ones highly unlikely to move the incumbent political leaders or 'people's representatives' in Canberra.

Reason? ... they are completely INDIFFERENT to the ever-worsening plight of these and several million other marginalised Australians including, most notably, some 2.6 million unpaid family care-givers (Carers), over 700,000 of whom provide 24/7 special care and accommodation, year round, in their homes for family members under 65 suffering severe and profound (dependent) disability. Additionally, a large and growing number of un- and under-employed Australians are being forced to subsist on even LESS than the current single Aged Pension. Actual numbers are difficult to secure, as our senior Common-wealth public servants rig the figures by declaring any who do paid work for an hour or more per week to be 'employed'

Together with the members of her Royal Majesty's loyal 'opposition', senior policy-deciding apparatchiks from both dominant political parties, and battalions of well-rewarded 'executive' Public Managers, these various individuals constitute a socio-economic Class, whose financial and political interests are antithetical to those of the great majority of Working- and Lower-Middle Class Australians.

Acting collectively .. in "Australia's interests" of course, each and every year these same individuals authorise the transfer of untold billions of public dollars to wealthy 'investors', 'developers' and obscenely over-paid corporate executives in Tax Breaks, Industry Assistance Grants, and other various forms of Corporate Welfare. This is because it is in their Class Interests to do so, with many going on to the Boards of large private (profit-driven) corporations upon leaving government office.

Unlike the members of the working class who have been forced to 'retire' on meagre pensions, huge foreign 'defence' contractors and manufacturers of weapons-of-mass-destruction are doing particularly well at present.

How much extra was spent on pensioners in the last budget? Oh thats right $7.4 billion.

How much are the opposition proposing to spend? $1.4 billion.

How about some perspective?

Yes I do live on a single pension. :)