Pension increase; Welfare reform
E&OE
Marius Benson:
Kevin Andrews can I begin with the good news, you’re increasing the pension.
Minister:
Indeed from March 20, 3.6 million pensioners will receive an additional payment for single pensions that’s almost $16 a fortnight, and for age pensioner couples almost $25 extra a fortnight.
Marius Benson:
And the other news is that you’re reviewing welfare payments more broadly and specifically you’re looking at merging disability pensions with unemployment benefits because you believe there’s an incentive now for people to try and get onto disability?
Minister:
We’ve known for long time that there’s been an emerging gap between the amount paid under the Disability Pension and the amount received under the unemployment Newstart Allowance, that’s because of different indexation and that gap is growing wider. So there is an incentive for some people to try and get onto the Disability Support Pension rather than on Newstart and as this gap grows broader in the future then there’s a need to look at this.
Marius Benson:
And do you close that gap by increasing the unemployment benefit or reducing disability?
Minister:
Well for anybody existing obviously we’re not going to change their situation and secondly we’re looking at this in the longer term not something immediately. You can’t reduce the Disability Support Pension so one of the options, and this is why we’re reviewing it, one option would be to actually have a new universal payment and then for additional payments for certain circumstances such as disabilities.
Marius Benson:
And at what level would that be set, because the reason there’s incentives to go for benefits other than the dole is that the dole has fallen behind the other benefits.
Minister:
Well we’re not proposing anything at the moment we’ve asked the McClure Review to look at this in the medium term and they’ll come back to us with some suggestions about it and then the Government will have a consideration of it and possibly make some decisions.
Marius Benson:
Is the unemployment benefit sufficient at around $500 a fortnight for a single person, is that enough money? Welfare agencies say it’s not. Is that enough money to eat, house yourself and still be in a position to get a job?
Minister:
A number of organisations have made the point that this is a low payment. Our difficulty at the current time is that the budget is in a very poor position, we’ve had deficits running each year and projected the way things are going currently into the future if nothing changes, and we’ve got a massive commonwealth debt blowing out towards $670bn. So it’s a very difficult situation for the government to be making changes. The other thing is that we have to look at the group who are unemployed, it’s not one homogenous group of people. Many people actually get back to work within a few months, then there’s another group who seem to be stuck on unemployment benefits for a longer period of time.
Marius Benson:
So is there some logic from what you’re saying there that there should be more than one level for the dole? That if you’re short-term unemployed it should be at a higher level than long-term unemployed?
Minister:
Look, there are arguments both ways. As I said for many people they use Newstart for what the name suggests, that is to have the opportunity to support themselves for 2,3,4 months and then get back into another job. But for another group of people they are on it for a longer-term period and we have to look at what supports are needed for those various groups.
Marius Benson:
Are you then looking at a lower level for long-term unemployed?
Minister:
Well I’m not making any decisions at the moment I’m just asking the review to have a look at these and look at the circumstances surrounding each of those groups. Are there a couple of different distinct groups and what would be the best way to actually encourage them back into work.
Marius Benson:
Just going back to the pension. One criticism made of the pension is that people who are very well-off can still receive the pension if they arrange their assets in a way appropriate. Do you believe the pension is going to people who don’t need it?
Minister:
Look, I think most people who receive the pension believe that they have a rightful receipt of that pension. This is not something that I’m looking into; we’re looking into working aged payments so I’m not actually looking at the pension.
Marius Benson:
I’ll leave it there, Kevin Andrews thank you very much.
Minister:
Thank you Marius.