That great sector of the Australian community, retirees, is being set upon again by government. The issue has passed barely noticed in the media but the political consequences for the Turnbull Government are sure to be profound.
On January 1, 2017, changes to the aged care assets test will see more than 100,000 Australians lose their part pension payments in entirety. More than 300,000 will have their pension payments cut.
There is a perception many retirees are rolling in money. They have assets many could only dream of. Perhaps that’s why the media has shunned the issue.
Let me ask the question, who among us could lose 20 per cent of our household incomes and come away unscathed?
It gets worse. With the loss of the pension, the government will also cancel retirees’ pensioner concession cards which allow them to enjoy discounts on council rates, car rego, energy bills and public transport tickets. Back of the envelope, that’s three grand per annum retirees will have to find.
Full column here.
Yvonne (17/12 4.13PM)
My previous comments were prompted by your 16/12 post where you expressed the view that the Centrelink pension asset test rebalancing was “manifestly unfair” for non-homeowners who had “no backup asset” and that they would lose 20-50% of their income. I understood your message to mean that single and/or partnered pensioners who do not own a home and who do not have any assets, would have their pensions cut.
This is obviously not the case in the scenario I have outlined, so my understanding of your 16/12 post is apparently incorrect. But I’m still not quite sure what you did mean.
Re your comment about interest rates/investment returns, etc, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the government should be called to account or to insulate/guarantee pensioners, or non-pensioner investors, when there’s a market movement in this regard, either up or down.
I’m hoping Yvonne, that we both may be edging toward the same bandwith.
Cheers
Cricket more interesting than I thought it would be. Elsewhere, Zsa Zsa Gabor has tried to steal a quick single on 99 and has missed out on the ton. Bad luck Darlings!
JB 09:11pm
You never ever display coherence JB whinging all the time locked up in your world of conspiracies .
For god sake man , get out and set yourself a target of passing the basic commonsense exams , instead on your wild dubiousness life you live . You are a real laugh with me feeling sorry for you old chap in denial living in an animosity world of suppression of the facts.
BTW ,..stop pinching my line,..”Thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys”
This is what happens when Australias worst Prime Minister in history decided to play with people’s lives to win votes.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/health/100000-mentally-ill-lose-ndis-cover/news-story/3f2363653fc5e86044f4ae2116395273
I agree Tony Abbott is the worst PM seen and MT is trying hard to match him, along with the coalition and the coalition supporters they should be ashamed of themselves.
Abbott never introduced the NDIS as you well know.
Abbott is the worst PM this Nation has seen closely followed by MT, this period of coalition government will take the Nation at least a decade to recover from. As usual the lack of infrastructure except for marginal collation seats which does not raise the Nations productivity and infrastructure like the NBN has wrecked for ideological reasons will have to be redone rebuilt costing huge sums to fix the destructive nature of your coalition’s disgraceful ideological selfishness.
Oh yes Abbott supported the NDIS. It was Hillsong Morrison who started messing with the funding and as usual wrecking things. It is a measure of you and the coalition that you attack the disabled receiving help and opportunities for a better life.
If you knew anything about my family you would know the last thing I would do is attack the disabled. The problem with the NDIS is it will be an ever larger drain on the budget. It will never end and just keep growing and growing with eligibility opening up to more and more people. It has already become an industry with private companies advertising on radio for clients. Governments of all persuasions will in years to come dread it. I actually support the NDIS but only for our most disabled persons. This should have taken 10years of careful planning to develop and get right. Not rushed in as JG’s legacy.
Christ I hate this shit!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/liberals-give-jamie-briggs-a-board-job-on-freight-project/news-story/b3d4ef7f2c641c3437d2a30357488a50
darren says:
December 18, 2016 at 1:21 pm
“Hi jack, no, you wanted to know why I thought offence was part of defamation. You didn’t ask the question you you now claim you asked. I didn’t bother responding.”
No, it was not as simple as that, Darren. I made a comment re defamation, and may have compared that to offence taken (as in 18c). You wrote to me and we had a brief dialogue about this. Not being a legal eagle I let it be. Jack from HK (and I’ve no idea whether he read my earlier comments, or not) posted a comment along similar lines to mine questioning your comment that offence (as in 18c) is more or less the same as defamation. I don’t believe it is, and I doubt Jack and most rationale people believe it is. HK Jack questioned you on this and thus far you have not answered. I too would be interested in answer.
I’ll cut n paste the dialogue to jog all of our memories.
Thats right. Milton. Is that not what I said?
By the way, I havent answered HK jack because its a daft question. If a person feels their reputation has been denigrated enough to take legal action about it I think you can assume that person feels offended. But thats not an element that has to be proven to establish a case. It is a semantic game that HK jack was playing and – thus far and in future – its not a game I intend to play. Im only responding to you on this because you are genuine about it and you cant see it for the pea and thimble game that HK jack knows it is.
Look at the QUT kid who sued the politician. Does anyone doubt that the young fellow was offended? Some libel litigants are “strategic”. Most arent. And I remind you that Bolt could have been taken to the cleaners if Eastock and her co-plaintiffs had decided to go down the defamation route. The irony is that Bolt got off lightly because all that Eastock and her co-plaintiffs wanted was to set the record straight.
i doubt that the young bloke was asked if he was offended, as it would make no difference.
i certainly know of successful defamation litigants who didn’t seem to be offended, but rather looked on a mistake made by a journalist or publisher or MP as manna from heaven. in fact there is rather a long history of that in Aus and the UK.
i was told at the weekend that a bloke i know pretty well who recently settled a large defo action is driving an expensive new car around sydney with the first name of the quite well-known author who defamed him front and back as vanity plates. Rubbing it in a bit as i believe her book had to be pulped as well.
i doubt that he was offended, he’s a pretty hard bloke to offend for starters.
Interesting article in the Aus from Matthew Parris, saying he wants to leave the LGBT club.
About time someone called out this artificial attempt at prominence based on a collection of multivarious minorities without a commonality of purpose.
Good on him. Being gay should be OK as is, no need for a political pressure group to say it is so.
Happy birthday for yesterday Lou, and congrats on the family achievements.
But really, trust the Oz to give a megaphone to someone whose views represent neither the mainsteam LGBTQI community’s, nor even those of the rest of the community. Parris’ announcements that law reform goals “have been achieved … we’re winners now, and really lucky to live in the 21st century; and that homophobia is not a vast, crushing force” may seem true in the privileged world he inhabits, but they are premature. In the real world, those who don’t fit sexual norms are still subject to violence and discrimination. In this country, they don’t even have legal equality yet, and there are several anti-gay political organisations dedicated to preventing it. So while we are waiting for Parris’ utopia to actually arrive, and for Family First to spontaneously disband, there will still be a need for LGBQTI political organisations.
i don’t know how much prejudice gays face these days, but just as a side comment, a bloke i know reckons the best network to belong to for young lawyers in Sydney is the gay male one.
JB,.. 09: 28pm
This is what is warming your oceans Chief!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-13/scientists-set-out-to-study-huge-underwater-volcano/6316518
cheers .
Carl on the Coast 4:37PM
Your usual waffle, attack the publisher without even considering the credentials of the writer let alone challenging what he has to say, or even reading it I suppose. And then nothing but obfuscation to dodge the issue altogether. The cognitive dissonance too much for you old boy?
Rodent
Seriously Rodent, that is just risible garbage. Have you actually read it?
Listen cloth ears!
The rise in concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and the warming of the planet is , LOOK AT THE GRAPHS BIMBO, is precisely in concert with the time line of increased burning of fossil fuels from the onset of the industrial revolution. Thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys.
What is it you don’t get about that??????
Yvonne Trevaskis 11:40 AM
Good on you Yvonne. You have the guts to make proper enquiry and face up to reality. It’s a great shame half the, ahem, men, contributing here will turn themselves inside out trying to avoid facing up to the real world.
Climate change is natural of course, the asymmetrical evolution of our species and the stupidity of using our sustaining atmosphere as a massive garbage dump for our waste and natural denial will naturally lead to the extinction of our species.
Ironic that what considered itself to be the smartest species in the known universe turn out to be the most stupid that ever existed. The new theory of relativity states that dinosaurs and dodos were geniuses in comparison.
They ‘re only human, but give ’em heaps anyway.
What about the other periods of cooling and warming throughout history?
And unabated you continue to feed us all climate change waffle all googled. Have you no sense of shame lad or lassie?
Jean Baptiste (9.11pm 18/12)
MY “usual waffle” ? But I’m just an absolute amateur JB, when compared with your ;
” … ongoing succession of terminal breakdowns of key ecological systems and processes – that is, habitat loss – over the next decade that it will precipitate the demise of homo sapiens.”
” …. human beings will be extinct by about 2030.”
In anyone’s language, THAT’S waffle me old mate.
JB – just a quick footnote to my 10.44am post.
I must sincerely declare it was not my intention for my closing sentence to be in any way seen as, or influenced by, Crocodile Dundee’s now immortalized utterance on that New York street.
I really enjoy the hard copy of the weekend Oz. It takes me the whole week to read and seems to have plenty of in depth commentary.
But I was really surprised to read Judith Sloan writing, ” The government in power (yuk) when a rating downgrade occurs is always held responsible.”
Morrison is in a bit of strife I think. If we lose our AAA he’s the man in the middle. Not that losing the AAA is going to impact much on the overall picture.
‘Judith Sloan writing, ” The government in power (yuk) when a rating downgrade occurs is always held responsible.”’
And invariably by her — if it’s a Labor government.
BTW, the Freudian tautology you point out suggests that Sloane thinks of the Liberals as the government whether they’re in power or not.