dash for cash

I’m going to say it again: The only difference between old people and us is that they go there first. And it is prompted today by something that I think is scandalous. It involves Centrelink and what I believe is a perverse and cruel policy to cut old people’s pensions.

It smells of a callous government plan to shrink pensions even more. Now I have said many times that people who rort the system, and don’t deserve pensions shouldn’t get them. It was out of control during the Whitlam years in the 1970s. But people who have worked and paid taxes for about fifty years and then retired are entitled to a government pension in their twilight years. And yet, under a vicious new policy, some elderly people are having their pensions abruptly slashed by 200 dollars a fortnight.

The Herald Sun has some heartbreaking details today. Justifiable claims elderly pensioners and even war veteran pension recipients  after having their money slashed because new Government asset tests have increased the value of second properties.   Never mind that it might just be a holiday shack.

Let me give you two examples of Government folly and financial cruelty:

A couple – now in their late Seventies –bought a holiday shack in Mansfield 25 years ago. They paid $40,000 for it. The latest council rate notice values the property at $134,000. But Centrelink valued it at $252,000. And the couple had $200 a fortnight stripped from their pension.

Another couple in their mid-80s – on a war veteran’s pension – bought a two-bedroom holiday house on the Mornington Peninsula 20 years ago. The local council valued it recently at $150,000. Centrelink valued it at $175,000 and THEIR pension was cut by $200 a fortnight.

Keep in mind the only time a true valuation can be made on a property is when it is sold. I have a mate who was paying rates on a property the local council valued at $550,000. It sold for $380,000. How much money did he overpay in rates?

Federal assessment officers are now looking at savings, shares, cars, boats, furniture, jewellery. You name it. 

What they are virtually saying is that you are a mug if you save anything for a rainy day. Blow it all. Live totally off the Government in retirement. This truly is a cynical and selfish Government “dash for cash”.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005