Peter Martin is reporting that the government will be releasing an economic stimulus package today which will include something on pensions – to be announced at around midday. He suggests about $5 billion will be pumped into the economy. [Update (dk.au): the total is $10.4bn or 1% of GDP]
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Steve Fielding was tipped off about this – it might contextualise his about face on voting for the alcopops tax and the Medicare Levy changes.
This is the fiscal policy two step following up the Reserve Bank’s 1% cut in rates – which is still a tad contractionary.
Hi Mark,
In what way is the 1% cut contractionary? Do you mean because the cash rate remains above a notional ‘neutral’ rate and is therefore still somewhat tight?
Mark,
Not sure exactly what you mean in the last sentence. RBA sets monetary policy, not fiscal policy, so a stimulus package is a fiscal policy 1 step. Fiscal and monetary policies are different tools suited to different ends. The government and the RBA don’t coordinate on policy (by law).
Secondly, a rate cut is expansionary monetary policy. I’m not sure why you say its “still a tad contractionary”.
Of course I haven’t been paying much attention to Australian issues the last month or so so I could easily be missing something.
Mark
A laughably opportunistic throwing of cash at electorally important demographics, I think you’ll agree. In Howard’s time, the lump sum payment tactic was regarded by some within Teh Left as a grave threat to democracy. There will be no such hand-wringing this time. Financial crises are great covers, aren’t they? Kevin Rudd is a very very clever politician.
BBB
PS: He’s taken the opportunity to double the first-home buyers grant for existing residences. Why is he persisting with this failed demand-side policy? To be fair, he’s tripled it for new homes..
It’s out:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/rudd-unveils-104b-stimulus-plan-20081014-50a6.html
Pensioners big winners in $10.4 billion stimulus splurge
Martin has underestimated.
Ok folks, let’s see if we can do this together;
Oh! You better watch out,
BBB: Howard was doing it into a boom. Rudd’s doing it in the face of predictions of a nasty recession. In any case, age pensioners fall slap-bang in the middle of the Coalition’s favourite demographic. Indeed, their only strong demographic, these days…
On the merits, it dumps a whole pile of cash into the economy in a hurry, to the people most likely to spend rather than save it. I suppose if you want to stimulate the economy, it’s not a bad way to do it.
#3 – BBB
Surely you’d agree that expansionary fiscal policy should be viewed differently in times of capacity constraints (eg. the last few years) than in times of falling output, low consumer and business confidence, and declining expectations of growth?
(Incidentally, I have issues with the package, but they’re of a different nature. Namely, I am angered by the recent focus on pensioners to the exclusion of other welfare recipients and disadvantaged groups, and I regard the first home buyers grant as a useless sop that merely inflates the bubble).
Very pleased to hear of Fielding’s change of heart on the medicare surcharge. I want to see that punitive measure against adequate public health provision, that crutch for hpplessly inefficent private insurance bureaucracies (parading as ‘healthcare providers’), the worst piece of social policy ever foisted on the hapless Australian public DESTROYED.
BBB
In Howard’s time, the lump sum payment tactic was regarded by some within Teh Left as a grave threat to democracy. There will be no such hand-wringing this time.
Dunno if I’m part of Teh Left (well I know my opinion matters jack, but anyway) but I don’t think this is good policy at all. Fact of the matter is, there are some pensioners doing it hard, but there are some doing very nicely indeed. A far more targeted policy would have helped, such as an increase in rent assistance. But as noted, this will all get spent by the recipients.
I have to agree with BBB, a lot of this package sniffs of opportunism
“On the merits, it dumps a whole pile of cash into the economy in a hurry, to the people most likely to spend rather than save it.”
Wouldn’t those folks on Newstart, who miss out completely, be more likely to spend the lot? I know quite a few pensioners who own their own house, have a few bucks in the bank who would have very little reason to go out on a spendathon.
What makes most sense? Grab 14k now off inflated house price or wait ’til the housing bubble explodes and pay possibly 40% less when it finally happens.
Bit cynical waiting for Xmas to help pensioners !
Update: Peter Martin runs the press release
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2008/10/104-billion-1-of-gdp.html
(thanks to Andos and others above)
Agreed. It’s always the unemployed and students that get screwed with this stuff. After over a decade of Howard doing it, it’s disappointing to see Rudd doing the same. Austudy, Youth Allowance, whatever the hell it’s called now is atrocious, and the reporting requirements are like a bloody star chamber. If they underpay you, tough shit, but if they over pay you – through no fault of your own vis documentation etc. you are expected to pay it all back. Even $20 a week can make a big difference. My gf had to pay back over $8k, even though she never did anything wrong.
I digress. First home owners grant is also a crock, and I’m right in the target demo. Would rather see the cash going into medicare.
Robert/Matt C: In the face of a looming recession, etc. the largesse now being showered on pensioners is perhaps defensible in absolute macro-economic terms, but the relative focus is a function of political pressure, both from pensioners’ groups and their champions in the parliamentary LNP, and of Rudd’s shameless opportunism. This particular part of the package is really indiscriminate Howard-style cash-throwing masquerading as serious policy. I mean, $4.8 billion for pensioners, but substantially less than $1.5 billion for supply-side stimulus to the housing market says it all.
BBB
But those rotters on NewStart (and uni students) are the undeserving poor, whereas pensioners are the deserving poor.
Ditto tax rebates – wholesome families with children receive the cash, while freewheelin’ childless types (who are less likely to own a home and are thus less likely to directly benefit from the interest rate cuts) get nothing.
One thing that isn’t clear is whether the extra cash to Family Tax Benefit A recipients goes to everyone eligible, or reduces pro-rata like the benefit does.
The more things change, the more they stay the same…
You’d think that they would have learnt from last time when increasing the first home owners grant just pushed up house prices. The only reason I can think that the Rudd govt would increase the grant (other than a big bribe) is to stop house prices from dropping as much.
My guess, they’re worried about the possibility of people ending up with negative equity in their home.
Nothing kills somebody’s propensity to spend faster than knowing they owe more on their home than what it’s worth.
I can see some argument (although I wouldn’t necessarily agree with it) to stimulate the housing market to insure that the prices of the houses remain higher than the loan amount and avoiding bank problems, but the tripling of the grant on new homes seems to work against that. The new homes are built in outer suburban areas, and it is the outer suburbs that are having price falls. You’d be increasing supply in areas where demand has fallen, for many reasons including the higher hedonic pricing of public transport access.
And I don’t have huge concerns about the pension as stimulus, but man, it is really really hard on Youth Allowance, or even getting at it in the first place. There’s the moral case for sharing the bounty there as well as a case that students that study more instead of working increases the productivity gains of their education in the future (of perhaps that insulation from workplaces reduces it, shhhh)
Also, I read that the increase on new homes is being backdated til June 1st. I hope the doubling on existing homes is also backdated, since I bought my first home 2 weeks ago, my self interest overwhelms my wonkery!
To clarify, Matt @ 1, yes. Sorry I don’t have time to add more – teaching a class in five minutes.
Richard @ 20 – I think the difference between pensioners and students is that often the pensioners are going to be on welfare for the rest of their lives, whereas for students its a temporary thing and they are much more likely to be able to get part time work and they stack quite well in share houses.
Chris (a different one), Melbourne Uni estimates that over 400 of their students are homeless. Maybe not a lot in raw figures, but the fact you’re going to be making money in the future doesn’t help you now if you can’t afford the rent.
And where are these share households? In Melbourne at least, empty rental properties are down to 1%. Basically there’s none around. Students definitely can’t afford the inner city now, but the problem with living in the outer suburbs is that their transport costs blow out.
I must asked my aged parents what they’re going to do with their largesse. They own their home and say they already have more money than they can spend. Perhaps they’ll give it to me!
That’s a good reason for disparity in relative terms, but in absolute terms, the youth allowance is painfully small even in sharehouses, especially when location/transport options are limited by the small number of university locations.
Perhaps another option would be to allow students to borrow against the higher income they’ll get after their education for living expenses as well as for the education themselves (an expansion of HECS perhaps, since banks don’t take human captial as security). This is a tangent to stimulus though.
I also wonder if there will be a slump when the momentarily increased bonus runs out in a year, similar to the slump after people jumped in before the GST (a slump the grant was made to address).
Stimulus is tricky.
Fine – oh I’d agree that youth allowance needs to increase (or maybe some more low interest government loans), just that its a much worse situation for pensioners.
wrt to sharehouseholds – its generally much easier for students to live in share house situations than pensioners which greatly cuts down rental expenses – again I’m just being comparative to pensioners.
And yes I suspect many parents who are financially doing fine are helping their children. It makes much more sense to help them when they are just starting out rather (even if its just letting them stay at home rent free) than leaving them an inheritance later.
When I first heard about an “economic stimulus package” I thought that we’d all get a $500 cheque in the mail. Now I find out that just because I’m not a pensioner or a “family” and I bought my first house last year I get nothing! How am I going to afford my new MP3 player / flatscreen TV now?!
What crap.
I was hoping for nationalisation of credit card debts…
I was hoping for further subsidy of ethanol production, marketing and consumption.
As fuel? Well sort of. I suppose.
BTW, Bernard Keane in Crikey reckons that there won’t be money for infrastructure because the surplus has just been blown away by
* the natural stabilisers in the budget (dropping tax revenue, increasing unemployment outlays)
* the stimulus package.
I don’t think he’s got it quite right. Maybe the surplus is largely gone, but that’s no reason to cancel urgently-needed infrastructure. The Australian government has no debt and a AAA credit rating. If it wants to build infrastructure, there’s no reason in the world why it can’t borrow some cash to do so. As a bonus, steel and concrete just got considerably cheaper…
Chris, it depends on who the pensioners are and what their situation is. With OAPs, some are doing it hard. Some are doing very well.
As for the share household situation – the point I make is that the rental market isn’t there right now. You can’t share a house if there’s none to share.
“Fine – oh I’d agree that youth allowance needs to increase (or maybe some more low interest government loans), just that its a much worse situation for pensioners.”
The facts are that SOME pensioners are doing quite well and others are in dire straights. Some students and many of the long term unemployed are in a desperate situation.
A tight means test is needed for any one off money grants and extra benefits so that we get a fairer and more humane society. And incidentally the government would get more value for their stimulatory package as the money would be guaranteed to go straight into the economy.
Yes I know I am a dreamer.
#29 – Robert
Yes, I think Keane has entirely missed the fact that the Government has invested billions into infrastructure funds (the Building Australia Fund, for example) that will then carry out ‘nation building’. The reduction in the surplus as a result of this ‘stimulus package’ does not affect that pot of money for infrastructure.
Keane is not particularly competent, and I find him tiresome and lacking insight.
I’d oppose student loans. We already have young people delaying family formation and other goals because they start life with a crippling loan, then they have to save up for the next crippling loan. Solution? Another crippling loan. GIVE THEM A BREAK. I thought that there might be a tiny possibility the new govt might lean towards a slightly more social democratic perspective. I hope the mess neoliberalism has made with the financial system helps to bring that on.
We already have young people going to live overseas instead of settling here because they’re up to their ears in HECS. Way to encourage a highly skilled population.
Matt C, are you sure? Unless I missed something, the infrastructure funds do not yet exist. Each was to draw from both the 07/08 and 08/09 surpluses (and beyond). Indeed, something like $15 billion was to come from the 2008-09 surplus, which has just been raided to the tune of $10 billion. So to the extent that the funds will draw on the retained 07/08 surplus, you’re right that there will be no effect. But clearly a lot of 08/09 money which was earmarked for infrastructure is now going into pensioners’ Christmas stockings.
BBB
BBB is correct, I think.
Regardless, if the projects are really worth doing, they’re worth borrowing money to do.
Sorry – off topic: Is the Future Fund still there and is it still $64b as at June ’08?
OMG, overnight, I have, as a disabled pensioner, switched from undeserving to deserving poor. You have no idea how good this has been for my self-esteem.
Just in case the previous sentence sounds ambiguous, under Howard (and Nelson/Turnbull) I was definitely undeserving poor.
Of course, I’m not going to get my $1,400 till 8 December, 2008. I know now that this IS a Labor Government, but still, I’m only going to believe it when I’ve got the money in my bank account.
$1,400 worth of books. Shit! I’m already drooling over Amazon.
Paul: Oh, great. Let’s just throw the economic stimulus straight on the CAD, then
Mind you, the Yanks really need the money as well
As someone who doesn’t qualify for a red cent, I think that you have a duty to spend it on Australian books purchased at an Australian bookstore, Paul.
The idiocy of indiscriminate fiscal stimulus laid bare…
BBB
Robert,
yeah. I did think about that. But I’m too old for a guilty conscience. Maybe I’ll spend $400 at home, just to do my bit for Oz.
Just wait until the Harmer review is in, Paul.
On another note, Peter Martin is talking about a National Address by the Prime Minister tonight at 6:30.
Frankly, I’m sick of the fact that the main beneficiaries of stimulus packages are always breeders and OAPs.
Why can’t we have a “(relatively) young and single piss-it-up stimulus package”?
If you want to get money back circulating in the real economy, my bet is that you’re far better off to give it to a bunch of 25 year olds to fritter away on iPods and cheap red wine than smug parents and mooching superannuates.
That’s what I said, Nick!
“On another note, Peter Martin is talking about a National Address by the Prime Minister tonight at 6:30.”
My fellow Australians, it has become clear to me over the last week that we are in deep shit….
NSW Working Class Hero Premier Rees is definitely on the wrong track and seized the wrong end of the stick announcing his gov’t will be cutting senior executive numbers by 20%.
Hasn’t he heard the luxury car industry is in crisis and o/s jaunts plummeting as we speak?
“On another note, Peter Martin is talking about a National Address by the Prime Minister tonight at 6:30.”
Ohhhhh, I’m still at work (6.30pm) and only just heard so I’m going to miss out. I’m so not disappointed.
Will you be disappointed when I tell you that you’re actually missing another cracking episode of Tony Robinson’s archeology show, Time Team?
BBB
Nothing in it for bisexual 35 year olds!
Poo!
Seriously though, while I’d agree wholeheartedly that the particular measures chosen may not be the best ones to ensure that the money gets spent – and questionable on equity grounds – can you imagine the politics of it had the pensioners not got their cheque?
Huh? Since when are low-income-earning bisexuals denied the Family Tax Benefit?
BBB
“I’m so not disappointed.” You so didn’t miss anything.
It could have been a states
manperson, morale building, cracker of bit of set-piece rhetoricand instead we got press release 101, with a supersize of platitudes chaser.
I got no problem with the decision or contents of the package itself, I’m not qualified to judge, my pocket money has never stretched to 10 bill, just 10 bills to pay, but I would have liked my once in a lifetime, never to be repeated, EconoPimps’a'billion, crazy, crazy, crazy, rescues’r'us package experience delivered with a wee bit more brio and panache.
I’ve always suspected he was a droid, a Manchurian Candidate , but I could never work out where he is ‘chipped. I think I know now, it’s the pinky ring, it’s not there in earlier photos. But who’s his Eleanor Shaw controller?
Am I asking too much?
Yeah, 5 minutes is a pretty disappointing Address.
I’d thank Christ for small mercies, Andos.
BBB
I would just like to add my voice to those who say it’s a pity they left out the students and the unemployed.
BBB @50 – when they are childless!
I certainly have mixed feelings on this one. Sure, it does seem to be targeting the right sorts of people, but the whole lump sum handout thing was from memory located on page 3 of the Howard/Costello handbook of political opportunism. And about page 5 of their companion tome on taxation and economic management for election-oriented dummies.
Kim:
“Nothing in it for bisexual 35 y.olds”.
You really are hoping for somene to write in and say something crass like, ” not even a vibrator”?
Kim, I have limitless faith that you are of the same sort of generous and open-minded nature as Robert Merkel, Helen and one or two others participating in the thread, and rally baffled at the meaness toward unemployed and students. You might even be thinking about the golden days of Howard or say, Peter Walsh of sado economic ‘eighties(in)fame.
Maybe also about the reinforcing of and playing on, of mortgage belt prejudices and stereotypes unchaged at least since the early seventies.
They can’t give a handout to unemployed. Or not easily. Being a pensioner is a permanent state. Being unemployed is transient – so to time a handout to whoever is unemployed on the day would be terrible policy.
The handout is for the benefit of the economy first and foremost. So to that end it benefits everybody.
paul, I was satirising the whole “what’s in it for me” thing!
Mind you, a vibrator worth a grand would be a thing of wonder surely…
Wbb, am touched at your trust in human nature.
Someone earlier identified a much more pointed dichotomy to my way of thinking, referring to the differentiation between “worthy” and “unworthy” welfare. In the mean, narrow and peasantish mortgage-belt victimhood/entitlement mentality that politicians and media have so gently reinforced for as long as I can remember, only refugees fall as low in the general opinion as the unemployed, which is to say two rungs below students who at least have a future, and several rungs below child molesters, politicians, rapists, financial planning marketers, axe-murders and lawyers ( a given individual can, and usually does, belong to several categories of above simultaneously!).
Toughening student is rite of passage; part of the inculcation of Calvinist values into a new class of future employed and are seen as knocking the wishy wash out of pampered suburban brats. Once they have attempted suicide or sold their fannies or butts for a few groceries, then they can be regarded as decadent scum and denied citizen rights and respect on that basis, instead.
Sadly,
I beleive, because unemployment hits certain sectors of society more severely than others. The naivity of sheltered middle class people, as to the actuality of the unemployment experience and who suffers it, is skilfully exploited, and is actually a response to grey power politics. The elderly, being permanent on pensions, have learned to acutely sense and exploit political weak-will, enbloc..
Whereas blue collar and other types of unemployed are isolated from others of th eilk and for some reason despised even by other welfare categories, who will gladly sell them out to avoid missing their own cut of the welfare cake instead.
Kim, you should consider what a relative thing misfortune is. ( Gee, that’s Voltaireseque!! )
Were you a thirty five year old bisexual member of Zimbabwean society, just plucking a name out of the air, you could be a billionaire(ess) 35 y.o. bi sexual, and not be able even to afford the Duracell that powers the blighter.
Tragedy is a relative thing.
If you were a blue-rinse little old lady of a pensioner, you could now purchase container loads of them. As an Academic at more orless the normal level of penury of your ilk, you could possible still afford a new one, at a pinch.
When I say “new”, I mean in the likelihood of you having not bought one previously, due to the extreme poverty under which academics labour, rather than to replace your old one ( should one have inadvertantly been in your possession previously ).
Sufficient unto the day…
Well I have to say props to the Rudd Labor government. Just when I thought we were dealing with Howard-Lite he decides to recognise that there are pensioners out there outside of the somewhat cashed up senior pensioners. The squeakiest wheel often gets the grease and now I hope to hear not another word out of them for at least the next six months.
They get their pensions, a million and one discounts, the Utilities Allowance ($125 per quarter, brought in by this Labor government) and now a good $1,400 to blow on all the slippers and water bottles they can handle. Not another bloody word.
Finally our carers and disability pensioners start getting a look in. Blow it, have a good time, knock yourself out! It is more than slightly disappointing that the ones that really struggle on the dole, Austudy/Youth Allowance etc didn’t get some crumbs. They are however society’s punching bags to be used and abused when the opportunity presents itself and will continue to be the tax-payers stress ball.
If you know much about the inner workings of Centrelink and have been unemployed in recent times you might have missed, perhaps the biggest news today. The Rudd Government has taken the sword to John Howard’s “Welfare To Work” policy. The mutual obligation requirements have been softened. No longer will people lose their entire payments for an eight week period for failing to turn up for training or work experience. Instead they will lose a day’s pay or $42.98.
Finally some compassion and common sense (you’d have to be silly to risk trying out a job knowing if unbearable and thus decline you will forfeit your entire dole for 2 months, Hi mum!…yeah Hi dad) have come back into the Labor Party. If it keeps it’s word they’ve got my vote next election.
Helen [33]:
Why not abolish student loans altogether AND launch a savage crack-down on the root-cause of those student loans: Credentialism.
Smashing Credentialism would not only give young people a fighting chance of having a fair start in life but it would also free up the labour market, wipe out onorous burdens on the whole economy and, importantly, allow Australian universities to surge ahead as world leaders in research.
Jacques de Molay [62]:
Good points ….. especially the one about the Howard regime’s ideology-driven, thoroughly counterproductive employment preventer …. the Communist-style one about forfeiting the dole for two months if you have a go at a job and find you just can’t handle it. Brilliant! It was a fantastic way of increasing daytime TV audiences whilst stopping employers being pestered all the time by job-seekers. Yep. The Clever Country.
Everyone:
I’m NOT one of the cashed-up pensioners. I just manage to get by from-fortnight-to-fortnight by living very frugally on the pension. [Internet time is my ONLY splurge]. Believe me, if I do get the promised lump-sum payment, it will all go back into stimulating the economy immediately …. paying for absolutely essential things that have been foregone over the past year or two simply because I did not have enough cash …. and no, that does not include a plasma TV or a holiday in Los Angeles.
If it’s about economic stimulus surely they should be giving it to teens to splurge on alcopops and porn.
But seriously, I’m glad that the mutual obligation tests are being loosened, but when are we really going to look at increasing the dole. The ‘undeserving poor’ just keep copping it. I agree a one-off payment doesn’t work for the unemployed, but let’s look at increasing their benefits. And let’s look at the provision of public housing. Housing costs have to be one of the biggest determinants as to whether you have a secure old age or not.
Yeah, and as a disability pensioner I’m not cashed up either. However – touch wood – I’m very lucky to have a low rent though I live a long way from town close to what used to be the Mish. (where the Aborigines are.) That might bother some people, but it doesn’t bother me. I also get the occasional windfall of having to go into hospital for a month at a time and thus save heaps on food costs now and then.Most chewques I’m paying one bill or another, but can usually afford a $30 odd book, because I don’t spend anything on smokes and have a very strict budget. After about a few months though, the same old food, including spaghetti bolognaise without cheese the last two or three days before pension day, does get a bit boring.If I had to pay expensive rent as I’m sure a lot of pensioners do,and wasn’t all electric, I’d be really stuffed, even with rent allowance. As it is I pay up to $40 per fortnight on medicine some of which I’d die without, literally.
And it is bad for students and the unemployed missing out. Shocking actually.
Paul, I hate to piss on your chips but the dough goes only to OAP; none to DSP.
Scrooge, old mate, you’re wrong there. It goes to all pensioners. They’re quite specific about that.
Paul, I really hope you are correct. This is one occasion I would not mind being wrong!
Yep, I agree with others that this may be reasonable macroeconomic policy but it is really terrible social policy. There are far more needy groups out in the community than the average age pensioner (I can quote sonme good hard research for that statement BTW), and giving it as a lump sum is an especially untargeted way of handing out the money.
Paul @ 65 said:
Just wondering what you mean about “all electric”. Are saying that its better to have an all electric place than a mix of electric/gas house?
Fine, why does a one-off payment “not work” for the unemployed?
Only because governments can wriggle out of paying it?
The unemployed are social lepers; scapegoats for neoliberalism’s new classism and employer authoritarianism and not far off the level accorded bearded caftan -wearers in the third reich.
It’s the same sort of ‘profiling’ of specific scapegoat groups that is no more than political “wedge”to curry support from the dog in the manger mortgage belt, as we’ve seen already with aborigines or muslims.
Chris (a different one) @ 70.
In Armidale its cheaper to be all electric. Gas tariffs here are shockingly high.
paul @ 71 – because the lump sum payments are really just a weekly increase given in a lump sum which they can give again next budget and in the meantime don’t affect budget estimates for the following financial year? Being on the pension is pretty much a permanent state and you don’t have nearly as many problems with people coming on and off it regularly like unemployment benefits which would lead to quite unfair outcomes (eg someone gets a low paying job and misses out on the $1400 just to lose their job the next week).
Labor are just saving up the real pension increases for an announcement closer to the next election.
paul @ 72 – interesting. I guess the ETS scheme would help correct that situation.
Apparently, the government got treasury forecast advice on the weekend that was either (and Gillard on the ABC RN wireless this morning poorly evaded this question put to her repeatedly).
Was that advice
a) Oh freak, we’re in the poo big time, do something NOW and do it BIG, or was it
b) forecasts have it a wee bumpy, a stimulus package probably would be good economic risk management?
My cynicism, and with the Acting PM unwilling to answer the questions, I’m favouring a)
Fantastic to see pensioners/carers getting a bit finally – but I’m thinking the home buyers thing is a bit odd – I reckon just equates to keeping house prices elevated, and I wonder if that is exactly the desired effect.
Firstly : crankynick .. “mooching superannuates ” ? Do you mean the people who have worked for 40-50 years,paid taxes that put the infratructure in place for YOUR education, etc ?
Secondly : If this ” bonus ” follows the path of the “supposed ” Utilities Allowance increase of months ago, then MANY pensioners, especially DSP ones, are in for a massive shock !! If they are in a couple situation, they will only receive HALF of the boost due to that “Tower of Govt. Clawback”, Centrelink. I only received half of the Utilities increase due to Centrelink’s ” guidelines ” … my wife was NOT on the same benefit as I am, so I only received 50 % of the increase. She received nothing !!
The same ” criteria ” will no doubt apply in this bonus : and I castigate the Govt. for NOT telling the WHOLE TRUTH about this, just as they didn’t about the Utilities Allowance !!
And, nick… be thankful for ” breeders “.. without them, you wouldn’t be enjoying your miserable existence here today !
watchdoggie1951.
Sorry Chris ADO, you sound like a public servant.
You’ve just sent my cynicism quotient for the rest of the day through the roof, at an equivalent dos to that of watching an episode of “Yes Minister” with Sir Humphrey Appleby in full cry.
Grisly stuff, indeed…
I read in the local paper this morning, that all OAP, carers and DSP will get the bonus, as well as all seniors card holders. So that will include all the ‘cashed up’ pensioners too.
It really aggravates me that students and the unemployed are disregarded with such ease.
Paul: You’re example to us all, with your “occasional windfall of having to go into hospital for a month at a time and thus save heaps on food costs now and then.” What doesn’t kill me just makes me hungrier, what?.
Does your hospital have internet access tha you can get ont to when you’re up to it? They better wake up to the fact that the trailing edge of boomers aren’t that far off nursing homes, and “Roll out the barrel” banged out on an out of tune old joanna every now and then won’t cut it much longer. Buggar the free laptop for just the kiddies, how about one built onto the walking frames? With wireless. Running that healthbook thingy they were banging on about at 2020. And GPS. Which can give reminders: “It’s time for your Van Morrison now Mr D.” And monitor you’re vital signs and send them down the wire(less) to the medical station.
That’s where I reckon a few crumbs should have been dropped, on Last Home
BuyerRenter grants. It seems like every week we hear some story of some outrageous indignity or dangerous practice being visited on some bunch of old codgers or other. The country may not be able to guarantee everyone has Teh Goode Life, but it should be able to manage to see that a good end of life is had by nearly all.Re: Spag bog: Someone told me they heard some writer who won a major prize being interviewed on RN or somethingm and he was asked waht he was gonna do with the prize money and he said, “Now I’ll be able to get the good brand of tinned tuna”.
Danny, what a cretin you are!
If you had read Paul’s list of ailments here a couple of months back, you would not be in such a hurry to swap places with him.
If society really wanted to get rid of its burdens it would start with empathy deficient near illiterate sociopaths, wouldn’t it?
Now, who’d be first cab off the rank….
An unempathetic reading you got there, Paul!
Mr, Walter:
I’ll try and make my meaning a bit clearer for you,:
“You’re an example to us all when…” = “I admire your apparently good natured stoicism in seeing a silver lining in what must be a darkish cloud given you have to spend a month at a time hospitalised”. That meaning was meant to be re-inforced with the slightly ironically adapted, and very well known, quote from Nietzsche.
How you got a wish to swap places beats me.
And what makes you so sure I’m not worse off, condition wise, BTW?
Oh, and I did read PB’s earlier, that’s what prompted my, and I’m not ashamed to say it, admiring post.
It’s not only students and the unemployed. Parenting Payment recipients (single mums and low income single income couples with kids) also miss out. This despite the fact that Parenting Payment for single mums has always had pension rates and conditions, but it’s not technically a pension since 2000 (another of Ratty’s cunning little moves, BTW). Of course they’ll still get the $1k per kid family payment lump sum, like most other families with kids.
Since last year “the unemployed” include single parents with youngest kid over 5 and those of the disabled who are assessed as unable to do full time work but able to look for a part time job. Their base payment rate is currently 25% lower than the age pension rate – so just who is likely to be doing it tough?
danny, people seem to misread you regularly. Perhaps you ought not lay it on so thick. The internet is a deeply cynical place.
BBB
Very true DD, I didn’t mean to leave them out. I worked at Cnetrelink when Ratty’s subterfuge, parenting allowance came in and was on dsp when the work changes came in. lucky me, I guess.
Danny, quite right. As BBB says, its the irony. Dd’s comment will hopefully allow you to forgive me- it reads similar to parts of your post, but sadly, we are assured, they (SS) were actually dinkum.
Well, thanks everyone for your friendly comments, etc. (Not being ironic.) Much appreciated.
Stunned that single parents have been omitted, but presumably they’ll get the Part A $1000. I hope so.
Wonder when the Rudster will actually get round to removing all of Ratty’s SS excrescences? If ever?
Per the announcement: “The Government said about 3.9 million Australian children will receive a $1000 one-off benefit from December 8. Families who receive Family Tax Benefit (A), families with children who receive the Youth Allowance, Abstudy or a benefit from the Veteran Children’s Education scheme will be eligible”
The guidelines to FTB(A) I found said To be eligible: Have a dependant child up to the age of 21, or a full-time student aged 21 to 24 in your care, Be an Australian resident, or hold certain visas and be living in Australia, You don’t have to be a parent to receive Family Tax Benefit Part A, foster parents, grandparents and other people with children in their full time care are also eligible.
How does DD’s “Parenting Payment recipients (single mums and low income single income couples with kids) also miss out.” square with that? They miss out on double dipping with the pensioner $1400?
Since carer grandparents specifically are FTB(A) eligiblee, and quite possibly pensioners, they’d get to double dip?
Rereading dd, single parent double dipping is what’s not on, single pensioner grandparent double dipping maybe?
Paul Burns [65]:
Notsure if Disability Pensioners are included at all. If they’re not, that’s unjust …. and as unjust as not giving the unemployed and the UNwealthy students some sort of encouragement.
Spag-Bol …. try varying the pasta component with spirolini and scallopini and all the other shapes; they’re about the same price as ordinary spaghetti – or pay a little bit more for a packet of green spaghetti to give yourself an occasional change. Try whatever is on special to replace the tomato component – jars of Turkish eggplant [aubergine] were on “special” a few weeks back; can’t say I’ve tried banana or pumpkin as a substitute for tomato but anything is worth a go. Chopped bacon [if on "special"] mightn’t be Kosher/Halal but it makes a change from mince. You might have to change the name of the dish if you resorted to a tin of El Cheapo “goldfish” instead of meat. Then there’s a good sprinkling of dried mixed herbs or chopped fresh coriander or parsley [if you are lucky enough to grow them] ….
This culinary advice comes as a free service from your gourmet adviser and banquet scrounger. Being short of money is, of itself, no excuse to avoid eating like a king.
Bon appetit!