I wish to respond to the story “pension rises welcomed” in the Cowra Guardian dated Wednesday, 24th September 2014.

I know what I’m about to say will not sit pretty with the LNP voters in this town but I am getting a little sick of the untruths circling around this town in regards to the aged pension.

I would like to remind those with a very short memory, that it was the Labor Party that first put in place the pension System in 1909 and it was Labor that delivered the biggest increase to the pension in 100 years (yes the Labor Party) in 2009.

Labor also put pensioners first with the Household Assistance Package to help with their household bills so they could make ends meet. 

Only Labor can continue to protect the pension for those who need it the most - people who worked hard throughout their lives and who have given so much to our community.

However; it was your choice to vote for the LNP, not mine. Tony Abbott and the Coalition plan to claw back $1 billion of this extra support for pensioners’ will leave them hundreds of dollars out of pocket.

It was Labor who continued to support self-funded retirees. Last year self-funded retirees benefitted from tax cuts averaging more than $550 for 190,000 seniors and also made sure that self-funded retirees who held a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card would receive the same household assistance as pensioners.

It was Labor that introduced universal superannuation 20 years ago. They were going to build on that work to further increases and greater protections by gradually lifting superannuation from 9 per cent to 12 per cent in 2019. This would have been the first superannuation increase of 25 per cent. that is now not going to happen.

The Government is scrambling for anything resembling positive news about their budget, so much so that they are trumpeting a standard increase, while failing to acknowledge that they want to make future cuts in this area.

“In fact, their announcment highlights the difference between the indextation rates pegged to wages and those pegged to CPI as the increase of allowances are much less than those of the aged pension.

Pensions and allowances are indexed differently, whilst the aged pension in increasing by $11.50, Newstart is going up less than half of the pension by only $5.20. 

This is one of the reasons why Newstart is now one of our most inadequate income support payments.

“However; the Abbott Government wants to change the system so that pensioners are indexed to the CPI, a move that would reduce the ability of the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, Carers Payment and Vetrans’ Affairs pensions to keep the pace with the cost of living.

Anne Jones, Central West