Sunday Mail Column - Caring for older Australians

Discusses whether the Rudd government appears to care about the welfare of older Australians.

“ANZAC day is the day we remember the courage and sacrifice of older Australians who built and defended this country. It is also a time to honour the fallen, a reminder of the debt that is owed to them by subsequent generations.

Has this been forgotten by Kevin’ 07?

RobertMenzies famously spoke about the forgotten people in a series of radio broadcasts in 1942. The forgotten people, he said were “the salary earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers, and so on.” At the time this group of people felt alienated from the political process. Their issues and concerns seemed to be ignored by those with political power.

Out of this group of people Menzies formed a political union that governed without break for twenty-three years. More importantly, by bringing the forgotten people’s issues to the fore in political life, Menzies ensured that his government was concerned with the welfare of all Australians – no group was excluded from the prosperity of the day.

Fast forward to today – despite a total lack of evidence, there is a common misconception that when Labor Governments are in office we can all assume that the welfare of the disadvantaged will be uppermost in their collective minds. Labor is adept at presenting a softer and cuddlier image than their vanguard of union bosses who run their organisation deserve.

The reality is a disconnect between Labor leadership and entire groups of the Australian community.

A good example of this is the recent attempt by the Rudd Government to scrap the carers and pensioners bonus in the upcoming Commonwealth Budget in May. Labor showed they were completely out of touch with the needs of some of the most vulnerable in our community. Following an outcry they scrambled to reassure the public that these proposed cuts were off the table.

In his first six months in office Kevin Rudd has demonstrated an obsession with symbolism and grand gestures that get great media but his disinterest in concrete measures that will improve people’s lives is breathtaking.

It is the same disease that afflicted the Keating Government. Government was bogged down with chin scratching and navel gazing. Ministers spent their time being impressed with their own profundity while the economy bombed, and while unemployment, inflation and interest rates shot up.

Rudd gained bipartisan support and community goodwill by issuing an apology to the Stolen Generation, but what has happened to his much vaunted bipartisan “War Cabinet” on indigenous disadvantage? It hasn’t met. No indigenous Australians have been helped.

Rudd was happy to receive international plaudits for signing the Kyoto Protocol, and we all remember the so called “historic” national step forward for water policy when he got Victoria to agree to a national water plan. But what has the Government actually done to fix climate change or deliver water initiatives? They have continued Howard Government climate change policies and their water plan won’t deliver any water from Victoria to South Australia until 2019. It was a giant con.

Every Kevin Rudd speech on any topic in recent months is peppered with the phrase “working families”. Rudd’s polling has told him that working families are the topic de jeure, and so he talks about them. And talks. And talks some more.

Not that he has actually delivered promised lower grocery prices, lower petrol prices, or a better deal for working families.

While I know how important working families are in the economy and I know well their concerns – being part of a working family myself – there is a group of Australians about whom Kevin Rudd never even seems to talk. The forgotten people under a Rudd Government are older Australians.

Peter Costello as Treasurer originally identified the changing demographic challenges facing Australia.

He revealed the fact that by 2042 almost one in every four Australians will be aged 65 or over (with the largest increase being in the number of Australians aged 85 and over).

At the same time, growth in the potential labour force (that is, people of workforce age) is expected to fall from around 1.2 per cent per annum over the last decade to zero in forty years’ time. Couple this with an ever increasing life expectancy, and Australia is facing a serious demographic challenge.

This problem hasn’t just gone away, despite the change in government, and needs to be addressed.

However, Rudd’s showpiece 2020 Summit, populated with celebrities, billionaires and 118 members of the left-wing lobby group GetUp, ignored the difficulties facing older Australians. The coming demographic challenge seemed to be left off the agenda.

No big ideas surfaced about caring for older people, improving the welfare of carers or the problems they face. The plight of older Australian didn’t fill newspaper headlines or the evening news nor did the needs of self-funded retirees.

My electorate of Sturt has the second oldest population in the state, and as the previous Minister for Ageing, nothing is more important to me than the welfare of older Australians. The Liberal Party in Government was committed to their plight.

Mr Rudd might want to think about the struggling pensioners and self funded retirees next time he considers the priorities of his government.

I will be working hard to keep the Rudd Government focussed on their needs.”