Pensioners to consider protest rally against state budget
Date
June 3, 2014
The Queensland government faces the embarrassing prospect of seniors and pensioners marching through the streets to protest its plan to cut their concessions.
Tuesday's state budget forecasts a 15 per cent cut to the Electricity Rebate Scheme, the Pensioner Rate Rebate Scheme, the SEQ Pensioner Water Rebate Scheme, the Reticulated Natural Gas Rebate Scheme and vehicle registration concessions.
The revelation comes only days after the Queensland Competition Authority announced a $200 increase in electricity bills.
And in May the federal budget included a $7 co-payment to visit a doctor, a rise in petrol prices and an extra 80 cent charge per prescription in the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Ray Ferguson, Queensland president of the Australian Pensioners and Superannuants League, said the state government's cuts to pensioners' rebates was "cowardly".
"What are pensioners supposed to do, when these increases come into effect at the same time as the state government budget has announced there is likely to be a 15 per cent reduction in the electricity rebate?" he said.
"So what do they do? Do they pay their electricity account, do they put food on their table, or do they go without their medicine?"
He labelled the second budget hit on pensioners and seniors in three weeks an "outrageous" double whammy.
"And the cowardly thing about the way this budget is ... they won't announce the size of those cuts to rebates and concessions until October."
He said that was because state governments were waiting to see how the Senate would tackle the federal government's cuts.
Mr Ferguson said a national pension group, the Fair Go for Pensioners Coalition, was holding a forum in Brisbane in mid June and would organising a protest against the cuts.
"[The forum] will be held at the Queensland Council of Unions building in South Brisbane and from there we are very hopeful of taking it to a rally," Mr Ferguson said.
"We hope then to develop it into a rally at a later date. Their decision gives us until October to organise a rally."
Mr Ferguson said both levels of government had underestimated the anger growing among seniors and pensioners in Queensland.
"Now they ought to take into account that there are 600,000 seniors in Queensland and they are not going to take this lying down," he said.
Mr Ferguson said pensioners understood the cuts to concessions to electricity, pensioner rates, and water subsidy schemes were linked to federal government cutbacks, not a specific state government policy.
However he said Treasurer Tim Nicholls had spent six months touring Queensland listening to Queenslanders who did not suggest cutting seniors' concessions.
"Of course it is fair to blame the state government," he said. "The Treasurer went out on a listening campaign and people said they don't want assets to be sold off. They want an increase in the royalty of mining taxes, they want an increase in gambling taxes."
However In Tuesday's budget speech, Mr Nicholls said 28 per cent of the 55,000 submissions favoured increasing taxes, while 18 per cent "mostly favoured" service reductions.
"Most significantly, 46 per cent of submissions chose to raise the majority of the $25 billion to $30 billion required for debt reduction through the sale or lease of some assets," he said.
Mr Nicholls acknowledged the Queensland government could not cover the entire $50.4 million shortfall in concession money from the federal government.
"As a result of the federal government's cuts we are going to have to pass some of that through," Mr Nicholls said.
"But this government has actually increased its concession payments by 9.9 per cent," he said.
"But the reality is that we couldn't absorb all of it."
Mr Nicholls said pensioners should raise their concerns with their federal MPs.
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/pensioners-to-consider-protest-rally-against-state-budget-20140603-zrwlr.html#ixzz33f3AnY00
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