Australian seniors to be forced on to welfare as pension age rises
About half of Australia’s seniors will be forced on to welfare because they won’t be able to find work as the pension age rises, official government figures project.
The figures obtained The Courier-Mail reveal that about 13,000 older people will be on Newstart in the first year – and about another 13,000 are projected to be on the disability support pension.
The Turnbull Government policy is to increase the qualifying age pension age to 70 years by 2035.
If passed by Parliament, this means the qualifying age will increase by six months every two years from July 2025.
Labor, which is not supporting the measure, said the Government’s plan to keep people in the workforce for longer would not work.
Opposition social services spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said: “Malcolm Turnbull is totally out of touch. He’s got no idea how hard it is for people to work to 70 before they can get the age pension.
“It’s been four years since (former treasurer) Joe Hockey first proposed this unfair policy, it hasn’t passed the Parliament. It’s time for Mr Turnbull to drop this unfair plan to increase the pension age to 70 in next week’s Budget.”
However, Social Services Minister Dan Tehan pointed to the fact that Labor increased the qualifying age pension in 2009 from 65 to 67 years, with former treasurer Wayne Swan describing the move as necessary because the country faced a “demographic time bomb”.
“Jenny Macklin had no concern about this when she increased the pension age now she is crying crocodile tears — what a hypocrite,” he said.
“Using the same methodology as was used for estimating the impacts of the increase in age pension age from 67 — 70, the impact of the measure to increase the Age Pension age from 65 — 67 would result in an estimated additional 61,761 DSP recipients and 63,187 Newstart allowance recipients over the full period of implementation to the end of the 2024-25 year.”