EASING cost of living pressures for Seniors and pensioners was one of the priorities met by the Federal Government’s 2024 Budget, says Member for Blair, Shayne Neumann.
“The Albanese Government was proud to continue the strong Labor tradition of support for older Australians by protecting the pension, improving aged care and strengthening Medicare,” he said.
“We are working every day to ease cost of living pressures and help people earn more and keep more of what they earn.”
The Labor Party’s election to government in May 2022 signalled the start of a suite of measures to provide more support for older Australians.
“Our comprehensive cost of living plan in the Budget includes a tax cut for all Australian taxpayers, and on average, taxpayers over 65 will get a tax cut of $1,719 in 2024-25,” Mr Neumann said.
“We have increased the Medicare levy low-income thresholds, which ensures that low income seniors, pensioners and other individuals continue to be exempt from paying the Medicare levy or pay a reduced levy rate.
“Through our Energy bill relief, we will provide a $300 rebate to all households to help with energy bills in 2024-25.
“This comes on top of the $1,000 Queensland Government energy rebate – which means people will get $1,300 in total off their electricity bills next financial year.
“We will maintain the freeze on social security deeming rates for a further 12 months to June 30, 2025.
“This continues the existing two-year freeze we have in place and means pensioners and other income support recipients who have deemed income will be able to keep more of their payment. This includes around 450,000 Age Pensioners.”
The freeze means the upper and lower deeming rates will remain well below the cash rate.
“We’re also increasing maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by a further 10 percent, building on our increase in the last Budget, to provide recipients more support to manage rental pressures,” Mr Neumann said.
Combined with indexation, this means rent assistance will have increased by over 40 percent since the Government was elected, benefiting close to a million households including around 200,000 pensioner households across the country.
“In the Budget, we’re also continuing to improve our health system by strengthening Medicare, the heart of universal healthcare, easing cost-of-living pressures with cheaper medicines, and embedding new mental health services in Medicare.
“This includes the Ipswich Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which is already delivering high-quality, bulk-billed care to the local community.
“We’re also working to take pressure off hospitals, with additional funding of $882.2 million in the Budget to help ensure that older Australians get the medical support they need in a safe and comfortable environment when they don’t need to stay in hospital, while freeing up beds for other patients who do.”
This funding will support the Queensland Government to provide hospital outreach in the community, deliver virtual care to prevent avoidable hospitalisations and upskill the residential aged care workforce.
“We are also freezing indexation of PBS co-payments for pensioners and concession cardholders for up to five years,” Mr Neumann added.
“This means the maximum co-payment will remain at $7.70 per script.
“More broadly in the Budget, we are providing $2.2 billion to continue to strengthen aged care services and deliver real benefits to older Australians.
“This includes reinforcing the foundations that underpin quality care and introducing the new rights-based Aged Care Act, that will put the rights and needs of older people at the centre of the aged care system.”
Mr Neumann said the new Act would provide the framework for fundamental change within the aged care sector.
“We’ve also announced an extra 24,100 extra home care packages in 2024-25, to help to reduce average wait times and enable people to age at home if they prefer to do so.
“And of course, these measures in our Budget this year are building on a strong foundation of investment by this government to improve the supports, services and programs to support older Australians.
“We want to reduce disadvantage and build a strong and sustainable social safety net that provides relief to those most in need, when they need it.”
