An Albanese Labor Government will freeze deeming rates at their current levels for two years, protecting around 900,000 pensioners and social security recipients from increases in interest rates.
Pensioners and older Australians are bearing the brunt of Scott Morrison’s cost of living crisis. It is the responsibility of any government to ease these pressures where they can.
But the coalition’s record shows they cannot be trusted to deliver for older Australians and pensioners.
Scott Morrison cut the pension for around 370,000 pensioners, scrapped pensioner concessions, and he tried to raise the pension age to 70.
Deeming rates are important because they are part of the income test that determines access to the pension and social security payments, the part pension and the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.
Between March 2015 to July 2019, interest rates fell four times but the government didn’t adjust the deeming rates once.
Pensioners know that the Liberals and Nationals can’t be trusted on deeming rates.
After almost a decade of this Liberal-National Government, the costs of essentials are out of control, real wages are falling, and now interest rates are rising by a quarter of a per cent.
The reality is that cost of living pressures have reached crisis levels on Scott Morrison’s watch. Now, he is having to do a patch-up job.
Labor has a plan for a better future beyond the election, which is designed to grow the economy without adding to inflationary pressures; ease cost of living pressures; get real wages growing again; and to get economic bang for buck from a Budget heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal-National debt.
Only Labor can be trusted to manage the economy in the best interests of all Australians, including older Australians and pensioners.