TURNBULL MUST TAKE ENERGY SUPPLEMENT CUT OUT OF THE PARLIAMENT

Labor’s Jenny Macklin, Stephen Jones and Sharon Bird have again called on Turnbull to drop the energy supplement cut from his Budget.

 

Visiting the Illawarra today, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services, Jenny Macklin MP, met with concerned community groups and residents.

 

Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services, Jenny Macklin, said if Turnbull had his way, the Energy Supplement would have been axed to 1.7 million Australians from 20 September this year.

 

“The Turnbull Government still wants to cut the Energy Supplement to pensioners, carers, people with disability and Australians on Newstart,” Ms Macklin said.

Axing the Energy Supplement to new pensioners means a cut of $14.10 per fortnight to single pensioners or $365 a year.

 

Couple pensioners would be $21.20 a fortnight worse off or around $550 a year worse off.

 

Axing the Energy Supplement was first proposed in the 2016 Budget, but still hasn’t passed through the Senate.

 

Member for Whitlam, Stephen Jones, said the cut would impact people throughout the Illawarra.

 

“This is a $1 billion cut to low income Australians that Turnbull misleadingly claims as a save to the Budget bottom line,” Mr Jones said

 

Member for Cunningham, Sharon Bird, said that over 500,000 people across NSW would be worse off under the Liberals’ cut to the energy supplement.

 

“This is another unfair cut from the Liberal-National Government, and should be abandoned,” Ms Bird said.

 

It’s time that Mr Turnbull listened to Australians and dropped this unfair cut to pensioners, carers, people with disability and Newstart recipients.

 

It should be taken out of the Parliament and out of the Budget, for good.

 

 | State | Number of people who will lose the Energy Supplement (by 2020)
| NSW | 538,034
| Vic | 424,878
| QLD | 352,950
| SA | 130,106
| WA | 160,552
| Tas | 52,296
| NT | 28,549
| ACT | 24,751
| National Total: | 1,712,116