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Welcome to our blog, Menfranco general blog
and this post, Australian pensioners alarmed
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Australian
pensioners alarmed
Let us start from the beginning
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The fat cat and trouble maker Australian treasurer Joe Hockey
This is a photo of the 2014 Australian treasurer Joe Hockey, as it appears in Facebook. Here we have given him the name fat cat, not only because he is fat, but also because he earns too much money. It would be fair if he asks for a pay cut.
Let us start from the beginning and talk about the man that
brought in this disaster, because he was unable to see what his budget would do
to the Australian pensioners and other institutions. This disastrous budget was
delivered from the then treasurer Joe Hockey the 13 of May 2014, today we are
still finding how terrible this budget was. Because the 1st of
January 2017 some Australian pensioners have lost some pension payments, which
we are going to talk about in this article. But first let us see how the expert
have described this budget at that time.
So, here I quote:
The austere budget faced widespread criticism and was
overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian public as reflected in all opinion
polls after its release.[3][4][5] Opposition
to "unfair" budget measures came from the opposition and cross-bench,
pensioners, economists, the union movement, students and welfare, community and
disability groups with some taking to the streets in protest. The budget
included changes which were contrary to pre-election commitments and promises
made by the Liberals in opposition.[6] Critics
argue that every one of the following pre-election commitments made by Tony
Abbott were broken in the first budget: "No cuts to education, no cuts to
health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or
SBS."[7][8] Echos of
the "dead and buried" Fightback! policy
package from the 1993 election occurred with proposals to defer unemployment benefits for six months for under 30s and the removal of GP bulk billing. Most proposals have since been shelved,
dumped or modified.
End of quote.
Anyhow today Joe Hockey, has moved out of politics, but the
politician have given him a very good job, with a very good pay. Meanwhile the
Australian pensioners are hurt from those changes to the assets test that he
proposed. Here one would ask, if he really wanted to save money to the
government by cutting the pension, why he didn’t propose to cut his own pay and
the other politician, since they seem to receive a ridiculous high pay for
their services. We think that this is only fair, since we are all in the same
boat of Australia. Now, let us talk about the Australian pensioners.
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Pensioner are alarmed
Yes, dear readers, today the Australian pensioners are
alarmed, they are alarmed because they feel that the Australian government is
ripping them off. They feel ripped off because the changes that are taking
place from the first of January 2017 are unfair to some of them. We believe
that they are right to feel alarmed and upset, so, we are going to view and
write what they are concerned about.
Therefore, in this article let us talk about these
Australian pensions, since most of us would be personally interested about. I
should admit that I am not an expert in politics and government matters,
however sometimes we try to have our say. As you know we have talked about the
Italian politics in a few articles, we have written one about Obama the
American politics too. So, now let us talk about ourselves, the Australian
politics and a few things that affect us directly, we are going to talk about
the Australian Pensions that are changing, from the first of January. This
change is going to hurt a lot of people that rely on part of the Australian
government pension in their old age.
Here we are talking about retirees that have not got enough
of their own funds to retire and live a modest decent life, so, they rely on
the Australian government for a full pension or part pension. This article is
being written to express the alarming views of some part pension retirees,
which are going to be affected from this change. In their views, what hurts
most here is that the people that have got no assets, because they have never
worked hard and tried to save money they will still receive the full pension
from the government, but those that have worked hard and saved their money,
hoping to have just a bit extra cash when they retied will have the pension
reduced and in some cases completely cut off. we believe that that is not
right, because it is the people that have worked hard and saved their money,
are the people that have paid most taxes in the past.
Anyhow, here are some figures that have been published on
the net.
About 330,000 Australians will find their pension cut from
the 1st of January- 90,000 will be losing it entirely, because of
the tighter assets test. I believe that it is not fair, because it is already
hard for pensioners to live a modest life peacefully.
So, if the federal government loses next election, because
of what they have done, they deserve it. Anyhow, let us look at some possible
outcome, and how people could react to these pensions cut. Here we are going to
write about some imaginary case of what some people could do, because they feel
that they are being discriminated and punished for being good honest citizen.
Anyhow, here we are going to talk about a case or two, as an
example. You see, before this pension was cut, this couple had accepted that
the government would give them only a part pension, so, they tried to live with
that, but now that pension is being cut, so they don’t know what to do, because
it is going to be hard for them to live a decent modest life. Let us talk about
their concerns.
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Some pensioners’
concerns
Here we cannot use real names, so, the name that appear in
here are not their real names.
Mr. John Day and Mrs. Ann Day are two aged pensioners, they
have received a part pension for few years now, as they are both 70 years old,
so, they are aged pensioners.
Anyhow let us describe how this change will affect them, in
this case of Mr. and Mrs Day.
Mr and Mrs Day own two houses, they both live in the same
house, even though they are not on the best terms with each other, and it is
said that they will end up divorced soon. Anyhow they are still living under
the same roof as husband and wife, so they receive their pension as a couple,
which is less than if they had the pension paid as single people, so they start
thinking if they are doing the right thing, or they should do a few things to
improve their financial position. So, let us compare what is happening to their
pension first.
As we have said, Mr
and Mrs Day have two house one they live in and another one they rent, so, the
house they rent is calculated as an asset, the value of the house is set at 520,000
dollars, add to that a few more things they have, they have 550,000 dollars’
assets, so their pension is calculated on these assets, as it was before they
told me that they were getting from the government about 450 per fortnight
each, from the 1st of January, they are going to get about 350
dollars per fortnight each. This is not enough to live with even if you try
hard.
The house they rent, today it is rented at 400 dollars per
week, because they could not rent it any higher, now, that is not net money,
because they have to pay all the fixed expenses, like the rates, the water and
other urban utilities, the insurance, the maintenance. But that is not all,
because sometimes the house is vacant for several weeks until a new tenant is
found. So, there are times when in a year, they can average from the house only
a bit more than 200 dollars per week.
Here one needs to ask, where and how the government people
work out this new law about the assets and how much you earn. I believe that it
should be worked on a real possibility that you would be able to earn at least
as much money as the full pension, before they cut the pension.
Anyhow, at this point of time I believe that this article is
becoming too long, so, the facts and figure about this example will be
discussed in our next article.
See you soon.
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Menfranco general blog
Australian pensioners alarmed
IS TO BE CONTINUED
Next time with, Assets and pensions cut
Australian pensioners alarmed
IS TO BE CONTINUED
Next time with, Assets and pensions cut
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Some personal and religious links:
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