2GB Chris Smith
E&OE
CHRIS SMITH:
Minister welcome to the program again.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Chris.
SMITH:
Thank you for your time. Is the government looking at including the family home in the pension assets test?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No.
SMITH:
Never.
MINISTER MORRISON:
We are not doing it Chris. I have been very clear about that this morning.
SMITH:
So where is the speculation coming from?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well you would have to ask those who are speculating but certainly people come and talk to me about a whole bunch of issues as you would expect – I have been canvassing with stakeholders right across my portfolio – from the disability sector to the child care sector to seniors and others and people raise these issues but that doesn’t mean the government is doing it and we are not going to include the family home in the assets test for the pension. I don’t think people should be forced to sell their family home but I also don’t think they should be penalised for selling it either. I think there are some very legitimate issues in that debate. Kelly O’Dwyer is right to say with the ageing of the population there has to be a debate about a whole range of issues and how people can increasingly have a better quality of life as they age, how we can encourage people to work longer, how they can access the resources they have available to them. All of those are very legitimate debates and I know a lot of your listeners would be having those discussions in their own homes. But it is important to know that there is no contemplation of the government putting the family home in the assets test for the pension. The only party that has put a tax on the family home was the Labor Party in NSW which I am sure your listeners will remember well. I think Chris Bowen was advising Carl Scully at the time.
SMITH:
Have you held talks with peak seniors groups in recent weeks and has the aspect of the family home in some kind of pension assets test arisen?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah it has. People have put that to me. A lot of people have put that to me and they are very right to do that. That is what consultation and dialogue is all about. I don’t throw people out of my office because they put something to me that the government may not be considering doing. We talk to people, we listen to people. That is what I have been doing. They have been very good consultations.
SMITH:
And you have said no way, not happening, forget it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We are not doing it. It is not going in the budget. It is not happening.
SMITH:
Will there be a Treasury task force to look at retirement homes?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Retirement homes or retirement incomes?
SMITH:
Sorry, retirement incomes yes.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well that is a matter for the Treasurer. That obviously does not fall in my portfolio. I do not have knowledge of what taskforces or otherwise have been formed in his Department. But it is important Chris that as the population ages and people will see in the intergenerational report that there are challenges there for the country. I don’t think the ageing of the population is a terminal illness for the country. It is not. People are living longer but they are living healthier longer. We could have an ageing boom in this country with ageing services but we need to be able to enable people to be freed up to purchase services, to improve the quality of their life as they grow older, to have better quality of life as they grow older. That’s what our policies are about. The opposition – totally unfunded empathy. If people want to bring suggestions to a debate well you have got to bring them funded and the same rules apply to the opposition as apply to the government they just don’t seem to think so. They don’t even think the debt is real. They think it is rhetoric. I am sure Chris Bowen’s mortgage payments are not rhetoric and neither are the country’s.
SMITH:
Tell me though, you just said we are living healthier longer, we know that we are advancing so quickly in medical research and what we can do to people in hospitals to make them better. We are in a healthy country because we have lots of sun, are out and about, an outdoor people so why the hell are we still seeing massive numbers of people lining up and putting their hands up for the Disability Support Pension every month?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well that is a good question and that’s why the government has introduced the requirement which will be in full application from 1 July that you must go to a government doctor. The impairment tables have been revised on many occasions and we are seeing the flow of people into the DSP significantly slow now. That is a good thing. There are other things we have to do in that area because again where people are able to contribute more to their own income, to their own lifestyle, to support themselves then we have to encourage them to do that. The system shouldn’t work against that. Whether it is young people coming out of school, particularly males – I mean we have proposals before the Senate that says there should be a waiting period before you go on the dole. That is being rejected currently. I know there is a lot of debate about that, people think it is a little too strong. We will have those discussions but the problem is there to be solved. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to get young men in particular as they come out of school to get into a trade or get into education or get into work. We are trying to get parents of young kids, giving them the opportunity to get back to work so they can support their families and as people age we want to encourage them to work longer because it is good for them, it is good for the country and it is good for the grandkids come Christmas I expect too.
SMITH:
I would have thought so. Thank you so much for straightening all of that out this morning. Thanks for your time.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks for your time Chris.