Greens Welfare spokesperson Senator Janet Rice and Queensland Lead Senate candidate Penny Allman-Payne will today in Brisbane announce the Greens\u2019 fully-costed plan to return the retirement age back down from 67 to 65 and grant every Australian Earlier Access to the Age Pension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This comes in addition to the Greens’ recently announced commitment to raise the rate of the pension to $88 a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Rice will join Penny Allman-Payne, who is on track to win Pauline Hanson\u2019s seat in the Senate for the Greens, to campaign on issues that matter to Queenslanders, including the party\u2019s plan to support older Australians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lowering the eligibility age will expand access to the pension for hundreds of thousands of older Australians currently living in poverty, and provide a well-deserved earlier retirement with guaranteed income support for people who have worked their entire lives on low wages in order to take care of their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the Rudd Government\u2019s 2009 increase to the pension age from 65 to 67, Liberal and Labor have been failing low-income older Australians. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across the country, thousands of older Australians approaching retirement age have limited capacity to continue working or have been excluded from the labour market entirely. Thousands more are in physically demanding, minimum wage jobs, forced to keep working an additional two years because of successive Labor and Liberal governments failing to give them the support they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP says that if the Greens are successful in their campaign to kick the Liberals out and secure balance of power, they will use their leverage to push to ensure older voters and the working class aren\u2019t left in the dust again by a future Labor government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the first time the Greens have taken early-access to the Age Pension to an election, a call heard from older Australians who say they\u2019ve been abandoned by Labor. The Greens announcement today in Queensland reflects the party\u2019s optimism for winning Hanson\u2019s Senate seat, the swing lower house seats of Griffith, Brisbane and Ryan, and belief that older voters especially in Queensland no longer feel represented by Labor or Liberal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adam Bandt MP, Leader of the Australian Greens said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNobody should be forced to work forever in this country, and nobody should retire into poverty. The Greens are proud to fight for the right to retire at 65 with an income that will actually pay the bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere is a poverty crisis amongst older Australians, and it\u2019s worse for older women, who are the fastest growing group facing homelessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOlder people who have worked in minimum wage jobs and in manual labour are being forced to look for work instead of enjoying the retirement they deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn balance of power, the Greens will fight to restore respect and dignity in ageing, and ensure that it\u2019s rest and revitalisation, not poverty, awaiting people at the end of their working years. By making billionaires pay their fair share of tax, older Australians can retire earlier with dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Senator Janet Rice, Australian Greens spokesperson for family, ageing and community services said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Liberals and Labor have abandoned older voters and working families across the country. There are hundreds of thousands of older Australians living in poverty, counting the days until their next birthday so they can finally reach pension age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEnabling earlier access to the Age Pension will reduce poverty in Australia, and support thousands of older Australians who deserve better from our government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThousands of older working people are living paycheque to paycheque and can\u2019t afford to retire. Many are working for starvation wages, in back-breaking jobs – in manufacturing, in hospitality, in supermarkets, as labourers and salespeople – people who have worked hard all their lives and are being forced to wait an extra two years to retire. The Greens won\u2019t make them wait any longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnyone who has ever struggled to put food on their table, or had to make a choice between paying the rent on time or getting the medication they need, knows how long an extra two-year wait really is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor too long, both Labor and the Liberals have pushed through policies that make the rich richer and have left everyone else behind. It\u2019s time the government takes care of low income workers and older Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Queensland lead Senate Candidate Penny Allman-Payne said:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHere in Queensland we only need a 1.5% swing to win another senator, and if we win I\u2019ll fight to make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share to lower the pension age and raise the rate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m fighting to take Pauline Hanson\u2019s spot in the senate because Queenslanders deserve someone who\u2019ll fight for them, not a wealthy career politician who talks a big game then votes with the Liberals to screw ordinary people over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAYING FOR OUR PLAN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n By making billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax and winding back handouts to big polluters, we can build a better life for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 in 3 big corporations pays no tax and many big corporations and billionaires send their profits offshore tax free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Greens will tax billionaires with a new \u2018billionaires tax\u2019, require big corporations making excessive profits to pay a \u2018corporate super-profits tax\u2019 and axe billions of dollars in handouts to the coal, oil and gas giants that are driving the climate crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These measures have all been costed by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, everyone can have the services they need for a better life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greens Welfare spokesperson Senator Janet Rice and Queensland Lead Senate candidate Penny Allman-Payne will today in Brisbane announce the Greens\u2019 fully-costed plan to return the retirement age back down from 67 to 65 and grant every Australian Earlier Access to the Age Pension. This comes in addition to the Greens’ recently announced commitment to raise … Continue reading “More money earlier: Greens launch plan to lower age pension age back to 65 and increase pension rate”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16054,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16053\/revisions\/16054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}