Changes to the Pension Age

Informing the Sturt electorate that Prime Minister Scott Morrison has recently announced the Pension Age will remain at 67 and will not be raised to 70.

This announcement builds on the initiatives of the Coalition Government to address cost of living pressures and support pensioners, such as the recently announced package to significantly boost support for older Australians. The $106 million package will support better facilities, better care and better standards in aged care.

The Package also gives older Australians more choices and greater flexibility, including:

• Boosting home care funding by $1.6 billion.
• Growing home care packages from around 87,000 now to 151,000 by 2021-22 - including a 34,000 increase in high-level packages.
• Allowing pensioners to earn more without reducing their pension;
• Greater flexibility to use home equity to increase retirement incomes.

Australia’s tough new aged care cop, the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commisson, will receive a further $16 million to police quality, boost specialist response teams for complaints, audits and compliance and support consumers when failures occur.

These new announcements demonstrate the Coalition Government’s commitment to protecting and supporting senior Australians, which was shown in the 2018-19 Budget with the $5 billion package that also boosted support of older Australians.

The Coalition Government’s support for older Australians also means we are committed to supporting those who work to self-fund their retirement. This means we will be fighting against Labor’s retiree tax, which is an attack on the hard-earned savings of around 900,000 Australians. Instead of encouraging those retirees who save through their superannuation, Labor would be causing them to lose the equivalent of up to 9 per cent off their superannuation. With 45 per cent of the Australians affected by this tax being 65 years or older, Labor’s retiree tax is a contrasting policy from the Morrison Government’s support and respect for older Australians.