Hi to any fellow Australian Pensioners living in Cyprus.
Not sure if there are any. We will be when we move over next March but in case there are any effected Aussies the following is taken from a series of Newspaper articles on the OLD AGE PENSION subject & you may find them of interest. If it affects you please write a letter of protest to the Australian Government in support of getting a more realistic pension.
Cheers & looking forward to joining you all next March.
Ann
Aged pensioners need help now: Labor MP
September 9, 2008, 10:44 am
Labor backbencher in pension revolt
September 9, 2008, 7:37 am
I could not survive on pension: Gillard
September 8, 2008, 12:57 pm
NSW Premier may reform govt departments
September 8, 2008, 2:17 pm
Opposition calls for immediate pension boost
September 8, 2008, 1:50 pm
A federal Labor MP has broken government ranks by suggesting aged pensioners need immediate help.
The government is delaying a decision on providing seniors with more financial assistance until its review of pensions and carers payments is finalised in February next year.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, federal Treasurer Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner have all admitted they couldn't live on the $546.80 a single pensioner receives each fortnight.
That payment will be adjusted for inflation on September 20.
But Mr Swan has ruled out a more significant increase until after the Henry review of taxes on work, investment, property, savings and consumption and their impact on individuals, families and retirees is handed down in February.
In the May budget, the government provided a $500 bonus and increased the utility allowance to help pensioners.
Queensland first-termer Brett Raguse says pensioners should need help now.
"The review on pensions is very important and I'd like to see it run its natural course," he told ABC Radio.
"But I think we probably have to give special attention to that group of people who are really feeling the pinch right now."
Australian Greens leader Bob Browns believes that the admissions by senior government ministers are "cruel".
"It's quite cruel of the ministers who recognise that they can't live on the pension, to say to pensioners across Australia, you can wait another nine months in a situation we wouldn't contemplate being in ourselves," Brown told Sky News Tuesday.
"That's not what representative democracy is about.
"The government can afford it ... it has in this current budget signed up to a $30 billion cut in income taxes for people who are much better off than pensioners."
Meanwhile, former Australian Democrats leader and Labor MP Cheryl Kernot has entered the debate over pensions, saying that Australia compares badly to the UK.
Ms Kernot, who has just returned to Australia after five years in the UK to take up a social studies role at the University of New South Wales, said Australian politicians are dismissive of pensioners.
"They think pensioners are powerless," Ms Kernot told ABC Radio in Brisbane.
"I heard about a month ago a pensioner crying on late night radio.
"He said if he didn't have his son to support him he couldn't live, and I just thought: In this country, when I look out the window here and I see the homes and the cars and the standard of living here it is not OK that pensioners should struggle to go to the dentist - they can't afford to go to the doctor if they can't find bulk billing.
"That's not what we're about in Australia."
She said British pensioners fared better.
"In the UK you don't have to think if you can go to the doctor, or the dentist ... there's a different level of, I think, a social contract in the UK."
Ms Kernot said retirees in Australia, and those about to retire, needed help.
"There is one generation that has not |
