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.