I think we should stop going on like this .

We voted these freaks into Gov. or I didn't but you did.

It's probably some kind of "Grand Stunt".

So lets just stand back a bit ....just for one Day !

Who knows they might be going to resign .

Wouldn't that be a hoot !

The premise of this article is sound but the reality is when you spend tax dollars you have to take it from something else - or go into further debt. But you are right, it is not conducive to play the blame game or play off different interest groups so publicly. I would imagine, but I could be wrong, that most Australians support the move to increase pensions.

The thing is at least this governmet is recognising the plight of pensioners something that Howard never did while he continued to feed the monster of consumerism, corporate welfare and ramped up the fear machine of counter-terrorism.

I wonder how much better off the pensioners will be, I imgaine we will be able to discuss more on this issue post-Budget. Will the disabled, carers and married pensioners also receive a rise?

Eva Cox advocates an increase in the single pension rate of $30 per week because single pensioners who are in the private rental market in major cities and towns are in dire straits. Women predominate in the ranks of single pensioner renters - they were in low paid jobs all their lives or who have been renting since their divorce.

I agree it's cruel to pit one section of social security recipients against another section when we blithely still provide upper class welfare like first home owner grants and untaxed superannuation pension payments even if the superannuation pension is 10 times the aged pension.

I don't know why the government is on this growth at all costs mantra. Why does the government increase subsidises to our inefficient domestic house construction industry and decease funding to health care and education. Remember that tertiary education is Australia's third largest export earner. Is it because construction employs fit young men and health and education employ women who aren't militant?

It has been argued that children cost a society more to raise than pensioners. Children cost money to feed, house clothe and educate until they are able to work. In Australia we pay teachers to educate our young. Superannuants [and pensioners] have saved for their old age, they only require intensive medical treatment for their last 2 years of life, they will have an average stay of 4 months in an aged care facility they don't need the state to provide schools, teachers etc and they can pay for their own sporting facilities. As people age they might need a cleaner and the visiting nurse to drop by when they suffer bouts of illness, mum stays home when a child is sick.

Put it another way. When Australia had a population of 7 million people mum stayed home and raised 3-5 kids and dad earned enough to support the family. When the population was 12 million mum worked part time. Today population is 21 million mum and dad work full time to rent in Sydney and can't afford time off work to have kids.

This article infantilises retirees by portraying them as too weak to withstand normal political discourse. According to the author if the Treasurer discusses the reasoning behind choosing between competing demands on the government's finances then retirees are likely to descend into a pit of anxiety.

"The culture of jealousy and resentment" certainly exists but it has nothing to do with anything the Treasurer has said or not said. While that culture is unattractive it is an inescapable part of a competitive capitalist society where there is a free media to present all that petty backbiting. Many retirees are, of course, not free from that themselves and the media most prone to that culture of complaint, such as Alan Jones on 2GB, is also the media that has a high proportion of retiree listeners.

Even the author can't resist focusing on the tiny percentage of cash payments that went astray showing that she too is part of that culture.

Retirees are capable of making themselves heard in the political debate and they do. The idea that there should be a muzzle applied upon anything pertaining to their interests ignores the overall social context of which retirees are a part and foolishly attempts to restrain political debate. Retirees are participants in those debates and ought not be treated as children requiring special protection.

As a part self funded retiree at 70 years of age may i say, during my working life i earned a good salary, paid 47cents in every dollar tax which went towards supporting society at that time.
As is normal in married life we built a house paying %18 interest, true food was cheaper then as was petrol.
Towards the end of my working life superannuation contributions became very expensive but it gave a life long assurance of support.
OK marriages fail but i was the one to have to start again, the agreement being my wife retain the house fair enough.
So half my super went into establising a home for myself, i recieve a supplement from Centrelink, after all i payed high taxes during my working life.
i have adopted an old Indian tradition these days and its this.
Its better to walk a mile in another man's moccasin before judging him

Goodness Billie, you did rather well to cram your rather leftie world view with so many wild, unsubstantiated prejudices into five paragraphs! Reading your post was some trip through the strange caverns of your mind. To suggest for example, that an increase in single pensions is only justified because most age pensioners are women is strange logic indeed.

Plainly to your way of thinking it is OK for aged men or heterosexual couples to be below the bread line because men are advantaged in society, right? What old-hat feminist bunkum!

This article is timely because by now it should be abundantly clear to pensioners and self-funded retirees that neither 'side' of politics can be expected to show concern for them regardless of the promises made during elections. Mind you, both sides of politics have been demonstrating the same lesson for decades but the old still vote for the major parties, so the Coalition and Labor are sure they will get away with it.

Some day soon the penny will drop with older Australians that the only way forward for is to become squeaky wheels and vote with their feet. Hopefully the Boomer generation which has been the subject of vicious intergenerational jealousy has not completely forgotten the lessons they learned in the Seventies - to stand up for themselves against State tyranny or be ground underfoot.

The best start would be to not vote for Labor, the Coalition or the ratbag Greens in the Senate. However it is time for older Australians to seek their own representation in the Senate. That would go well with a demand for smaller government and less interference of government in people's lives and personal affairs.

Under the present economic circumstances, we pensioners need to stand in the queue behind the carers and the disabled. They are the ones who are really in need of more largesse from the government.

Cornflower, I suggest that you go back and read what Billie had to say.

David

I believe all Pensioners should receive the $30 pay rise and then from hereonin they should receive the CPI. Everyone should stop whinging about paying pensions, these people have paid taxes all through their working lives. In most cases their taxes have gone to supplement and give tax breaks to people on very large suprannuation schemes. Pensioners are Taxpayers too, a part of their pension goes back to the Government via GST

Thank you everybody, Mareel i never thought of that, the GST factor very astute of you and how cunning would our elected representatives be, all pensioners are still paying tax even those on the flat rate, not to mention those receiving over a particular sum paying tax.
Thank you for that, and thank you John Howard and the judas Meg Lees because of her we got the GST in the first place, anyway it cost her in the end.

I blame the whole show on the sort of scrotes employed in middle management.
Doesn't matter what Gov-decisions are made - there is a sort managing supermarkets, superannuation scams and retirement villages who once played football - or some other noxious, essentially damaging, activity.
Their employers trust them to make 'workaday decisions' - of which they have repeatedly failed.
Naturally, their decisions were ad-hoc, totally uninformed and inevitably caused everyone grief.
Good God. Ever looked for Herrings in a decent sauce at your food outlet these days?
It will all just keep on going until someone works out how to put a stop to abject stupidity in our society and some effective way of making those who deserve to be unemployed to REMAIN unemployed.

That idiot 'bullshine, 'Turnblaster" whatsisname - leader, he hopes, of opposition, might take time out to do what he was doing years ago.
Didn't he want a republic then?
Why not keep on track?
For God's sake his name should be Turncoat - Not Turnbull - surely?
How in hell might we progress wnen stupidity keeps sway?
How in hell might the disadvantaged support government policy if every cent passed on to them is absorbed by the corporate vacuum-cleaner of abject greed?
This next budget, hopefully, might give the disadvantaged the first break since howard became the last Fuhrer.
Please hope that Rudd proves to be a Nation builder - not just another timeserving loser.

EXEMPT PENSIONERS FROM THE GST

If the government wants to give pensioners and carers a rise why doesn't it exempt them from the GST. The subsistence amount they receive to live on in reality is probably half that amount again if you factor in the GST.

Actually Sharkfin, the GST is only 10 percent so that would only give an increase of under 30 dollars a week.

David

I'm getting a bit tired of the old "I paid taxes all my life.." mantra.

Well I've paid taxes too and I've also been paying at least 5% of my income as compulsory Super since about 1973. The only difference is that when I retire I don't expect to be any better off as a self-funded retiree than a pensioner with all those concessions.

Meanwhile, I have driven on public roads, been educated in schools, been treated in hospitals and been protected by a standing Armed Force in return for my tax payments. I don't claim credit for building any nation - I merely contributed along the way, along with millions of others.

Nevertheless, the elderly deserve to live with dignity and any suggestion of "sacrifice" is just typical political waffle and I can't accept that anybody feels any "guilt" over what is an overdue payment.

Before the noise about Rudd's payments gets too loud, where were the increases during those Howard "boom years" besides that generous one-off compensation for the GST?

Keating made it compulsory that Australian workers give 9% of his/her wages to a bunch of stock brokers, so they can play silly buggers, gambling with other people's money and making truckloads, whether they win or lose.
Compare this to paying a 9% tax for a guaranteed income, indexed to the CPI.
The problem? This solution doesn't discriminate between fortunate and unfortunate, on a sliding scale.

Pensioners need to remember we [yes I'm one] did it pretty easy, in many ways, compared to our kids.

When my wife & I bought our home, it cost a little more than 4.5 times my anual salary.

Better still, the interest rate on my loan was just 4.5%.

Better still, on near average earnings, my tax rate was 7.5%.

Of course we did not have so many bludgers, public servants, & welfare recipients to keep back then.

I would like to thank the Oz tax payer for their generosity in paying us a pension, which, with another $30 per week, should keep any reasonable pensioner cumfortably.

I can see no reason why young families should pay more tax so pensioners can smoke, drink, gamble, or take holidays, when these young families are often struggling to pay mortgages, & raise families, paying much more for housing than we did.

Yes, I would find it hard to replace my old car, & I'll have to save hard, to pay to get the house painted in a few years, but no harder than my young neighbours, who have to work long hours to pay their way in an expensive world.