Pensioners pittance - of the $15 CPI increase, they get $2.25

The email below was sent primarily to Kerry Shine, MP Toowoomba North, and copied to six other Ministers in Brisbane and Canberra. It concerned last Saturday’s increase in the Consumer Price Index which translates into a $15 increase in the Age Pension rate.

In Toowoomba, some 250 pensioners in five villages will personally benefit by only $2.25 in their pockets. The rest will go automatically in rental increases.

Kerry Shine as you know is Queensland Attorney-General and Minister Assisting the Premier in Western Queensland. Copies went to Premier Anna Bligh, Seniors Minister Lindy Nelson-Car, Treasurer Wayne Swan, Federal Ageing Mininster Justine Elliot, and Communities Minister Senator Joe Ludwig. A copy was also sent to Toowomba solicitor Chris Meibusch in case he remains ALP candidate for Groom.

Not a single reply has been received ! Not a word ! The email (misspelling corrected) read:

“As you know, on September 20 the CPI will be adjusted upwards by $15 to the Age Pension. Under the rental formula which was instated by the Village Life Ltd company some years ago the rental of tenants in all its villages is also adjusted upwards, taking 85% of the increase. Out of the $15 CPI increae, individual pensioners here and in other villages will benefit by only $2.25 - ie 15%

By only 15% - or about one seventh of the increase.

“I have not been able to find out - or inform my fellow residents - how this rental formula first came to be arrived at :

The whole formula being 85% of the Age Pension, plus the total of applicable rental assistance, plus the automatic debiting of CPI increases. Rentals are debited from bank accounts. Company revenues are thus virtually guaranteed bad-debt free.

“It has been generally thought that this formula was originally worked out with and approved by Centrelink - but I can find no evidence to support this belief.

“Will you please inform me of the history of this rental formula and which government agencies approved it in the first place and at present, if any.

“What this means of course is that pensioner tenants only benefit nominally by national cost-of-living adjustments. and that the corporations operating rental villages get two automatic rental increases every year.

“No other landlord benefits by such automatic benefit.. Operating companies in this industry can increase rentals without themselves being required to justify increases in their operating costs before any government agency.

“It must be pointed out that should there be a sizeable increase in the Age Pension, as predicted, early in 2009, we as individuals may only get 15% of it.

“Presumably you - the addressees of this email or the agencies of your portfolios - have known about this rental formula since its inception - but yet you have all ignored appeals for independent inquiry into the operations of this rental residential industry which has Aged Australians as it marketing target.

“The Queensland Government has also dismissed out of hand appeals for the appointment of a Minister for Ageing with Cabinet rank to overseas matters affecting the well-being of Aged Queenslanders.

“There are 48 units in the Toowoomba village I live in and there are at least four others in the city.. There and some thousands of Age and other Pensioners living in similar villages coast to coast.

Further appeals for attention have been addressed to Shine’s Senior Policy Adviser and to Minister Nelson-Carr’s people. Still not a word of reply!
I’ll think I’ll put my $2.25 towards a local TV campaign advertising this political