Australian pensioners alarmed.

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All politicians are strange people, they promise you a lot but deliver very little, but the year that Tony Abbot became the 28th prime minister of Australia was one of the worst budgets that Australia has seen for a long time. Anyhow, Tony Abbot is a delightful character, he could mix politics with some funny things, which is sometimes helpful. But he was not good enough to see that the budget that Joe Hocky was brining up was going to be a disaster for the pensioners. And it was a disaster then and even today the Australian pensioners are affected adversely.  

Welcome to our article, Australian pensioners alarmed. 

Dear readers, this is an event that started a few years ago, but even today the Australian pensioners are affected adversely. Anyhow, the Australian pensioners were alarmed, because their pensions can be cut, and some of them may even lose the government pension.

But let us start from the beginning and talk about the man that brought in this disaster, that the Australian pensioners did not deserve. Anyhow, this disastrous budget was delivered from the then treasurer Joe Hockey, the 13th of May 2014, today we are still finding how terrible this budget was. Because some Australian pensioners have lost some pension payments. But first let us see how the expert have described this budget at that time. So, here I quote:

The grim budget faced widespread criticism and was overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian public as reflected in all opinion polls after its release. Opposition to the "unfair" budget measures came from the opposition and crossbench, 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. 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." 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, Joe Hockey, has moved out of the Australian politics, but the politician have given him a good job, with a good pay. Meanwhile the Australian pensioners are hurt from those changes to the assets test that he proposed. Here we want to ask, if he 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 pay, at least the same amount that the pensioner will lose, just to be fair for everybody, since they receive a ridiculous high pay for their services. We think that to cut the politician pay is only fair, since we are all in the same boat of Australia. Now, let us talk about the Australian pensioners because they are alarmed and worried.

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 Pensioner are alarmed.     

Dear readers, today we are still feeling the effect of what happened years ago, to see what I mean, I am going to repeat how I felt then. The Australian pensioners 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 them. We believe that they are right to feel alarmed, worried, and upset, because some of them will be forced to live with less than the minimum government pension.

Therefore, we will talk about the Australian pensions since most of us are interested about that. I am not an expert in politics and government matters, however, when we use our common sense and things do not work out, we want to have our say. So, let us talk about the Australian politics and what affects us directly. So, the Australian Pensions are changing, from the first of January 2017. This change is hurting people that rely on the Australian government pension, and it will continue to hurt in the future.

Here we are talking about retirees, that do not have enough funds; so, they rely on the Australian government pension, for a full pension or part pension. Most of the people that will be affected from this change, are the part pension retirees; some of them will receive less pension, and some of them will lose the government pension altogether, because of the changed in the assets-test.

Now, what hurts most these pensioners that are losing pension money, is that the people that have no assets, because they have never worked hard and save money, they will still receive the full pension from the government, but those that have worked hard, payed their tax and saved their money for rainy days, hoping to have extra cash when they retied will have the pension reduced and completely cut off. We believe that this 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 1^st 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 to lose. Anyhow, let us look at how people can react to these pensions cut. Here we are going to write about some imaginary case, about what some people can 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, they don’t know what to do, because it is going to be hard for them to live a decent modest life.

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Other pensioners’ concerns.  

Here we cannot use real names, so, the name that appear are not their real names.

Mr. John Day and Mrs. Ann Day are two pensioners, they have received a part pension for years, as they are both over 70 years old, so, they are aged pensioners.

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 other things to improve their financial position. So, let us compare what is happening to their pension.

As we have said, Mr. and Mrs. Day have two houses, 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 1^st 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 to save money.

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 must 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 rent, about 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 can earn at least as much money as the full pension before they cut the pension, but they do not, and it is going to hurt pensioners today, and in the future. 

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, Assets and pension cuts. 

To see more click on this link, Australian pensioners alarmed. 

See you soon.

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