The Australian pensioners are alarmed,

Dear readers, in this blog, we have written several posts about D.I.Y. articles that dealt with building works. Having done that, now we are writing posts about social issues. We have started with this post, Farming today is still a risky business, we want to talk about social issues that can affect all of us. We will continue with Australian social issues that we have already written in the past, when these things happened; then we will follow with what is happening these days. This is only our views of what we see happening, so, we hope we can say something that can be helpful. Today we are going to talk about the Australian pensioners are alarmed, because there is a pension cut coming.  

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To see more visit links, Australian pensioners alarmed.

The Australian social security is called Centrelink, this is where people go to see if they qualify to receive the pension, or other help from the federal government. Because there is a cut in the pension there will be lot of people calling on this office. But let us see what is this all about. 

Australian pensioners are alarmed. 

Welcome to our article,  Australian pensioners alarmed. 

Dear readers, for this article to make sense, you have to think that it has been written a few years ago, when these things happened. Now let me continue. 

Yes, today the Australian pensioners are alarmed, because their pensions can be cut, and some of them may even lose the entire government pension.

But let us talk about the man that brought in this disaster budget, 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 the 1^st of January 2017, some Australian pensioners have lost some pension payments. Now, 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 "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 the-election commitments and promises made by the Liberals in opposition. Critics argue that every one of the following 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 very 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.

(Now, before we do that, please note that these articles now have been regrouped, so they may not follow each other closely.) 

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The X Australian treasurer Joe Hockey

Now, this is the photo of Joe Hockey the x Australian treasurer. Somebody that is very upset has placed his photo in Facebook. They have given him the name of fat cat, not only because he is fat, but also because he earns too much money. So, we believe that it would be fair, if his pay can be cut. 

 Pensioners 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 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 must be interested about that. I admit 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. Anyhow, the Australian Pensions are changing, from the first of January 2017. This change is hurting people that rely on the Australian government pension.

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 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 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, paid their tax and saved their money for rainy days, 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 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 some possible outcome, and 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.

Anyhow, let us describe how this change will affect 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 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.

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.

See you soon.

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