5 years ago
PENSIONERS SHORTCHANGED BY INFLATED DEEMING RATES
LINDA BURNEY MP
Pensioners would be up to $149 a fortnight, or $3,875 a year, better off if the Government reduced the deeming rates by 1.25 per cent – in line with reductions in the cash rate.
Since March 2015, the Reserve Bank has cut the cash rate five times, but the Liberals and Nationals haven’t adjusted the deeming rates at all.
The cash rate is now at a record low of 1 per cent, but deeming rates are as high as 3.25 per cent.
The Government uses deeming to calculate the level of a person’s pension – assuming a rate of income from savings, whether or not pensioners actually earn those returns.
Scott Morrison has been deliberately short-changing pensioners for years.
For example, if the deeming rates were reduced by 1.25 per cent, in line with the cash rate, a homeowner pensioner couple with $350,000 in savings would be $40 a fortnight better off, or $1,037 per year.
Scott Morrison is on another planet if he thinks pensioners can find secure investments that pay anything like 3.25 per cent.
It’s sneaky and unfair to count income that pensioners simply aren’t getting.
Labor has been demanding change and an urgent reduction in the deeming rate is needed.
The Liberals and Nationals have run out of excuses. The deeming rate could be changed tomorrow with a stroke of the Minister’s pen.
It’s time Scott Morrison was honest about how much he’s taken out of pensioners’ pockets by keeping deeming rates artificially high.
Since March 2015, the Reserve Bank has cut the cash rate five times, but the Liberals and Nationals haven’t adjusted the deeming rates at all.
The cash rate is now at a record low of 1 per cent, but deeming rates are as high as 3.25 per cent.
The Government uses deeming to calculate the level of a person’s pension – assuming a rate of income from savings, whether or not pensioners actually earn those returns.
Scott Morrison has been deliberately short-changing pensioners for years.
For example, if the deeming rates were reduced by 1.25 per cent, in line with the cash rate, a homeowner pensioner couple with $350,000 in savings would be $40 a fortnight better off, or $1,037 per year.
Scott Morrison is on another planet if he thinks pensioners can find secure investments that pay anything like 3.25 per cent.
It’s sneaky and unfair to count income that pensioners simply aren’t getting.
Labor has been demanding change and an urgent reduction in the deeming rate is needed.
The Liberals and Nationals have run out of excuses. The deeming rate could be changed tomorrow with a stroke of the Minister’s pen.
It’s time Scott Morrison was honest about how much he’s taken out of pensioners’ pockets by keeping deeming rates artificially high.