Bill Shorten says he will have “more to say about pensioners between now and the election” as the Batman byelection campaign enters its final days.
While continuing the stout defence of the policy he unveiled on Tuesday axing cash dividend imputation credits as fiscally fair and necessary, the Labor leader used a visit to the Batman campaign in Melbourne to send a message that Labor would look after the interests of pensioners with new policy offerings before the federal poll.
Labor’s candidate in the contest, Ged Kearney, told voters at a town hall meeting on Wednesday night that the new proposal was “good policy”, but she told retirees at the event raising concern about the impact of the change that there was still time for the ALP to assess its effects.
Kearney, who was campaigning with Shorten on Thursday, did not explicitly endorse the policy unveiled by Shorten earlier in the week, but told reporters she was “totally confident and totally satisfied that Labor is the party that will look after low-income people including retirees and pensioners”.
Asked whether the policy announcement would decrease her chances of victory on Saturday night, Kearney said there was “a lot of discussion” about it, but the contest was “tight no matter what”.
“I’ve still got a couple of days to get out there and get every single vote that I possibly can,” she said.
In inconvenient timing for the Melbourne electoral contest, Labor on Tuesday pledged to scrap cash rebates for excess imputation credits for individuals and superannuation funds in a measure saving $11.4bn over the forward estimates, and $59bn over the medium term.
Labor was braced before the announcement for a major backlash, with retirement savings a sensitive political issue. Seniors groups, the self managed superannuation fund industry and shareholder representatives all lined up against the proposal.
With the Batman byelection in play, the Greens have declined to give Labor any political cover for the proposed shift. Greens leader Richard Di Natale has signalled the party has concerns “about the possible unintended consequences”.
The Greens have been on the back foot in Batman about pensions, having done a deal with the Coalition to reverse Howard government changes to the pension assets test, which saw 100,000 people lose the the payment.
Labor’s policy announcement this week creates scope to return fire in the final days of the contest.
Labor acknowledges that more than 200,000 pensioners and part-pensioners will be affected by the policy change, and around 400,000 self-funded retirees.
The government says the shift would hit the incomes of a million Australians, most of whom were over 65, and affect one in three self-managed super funds, 370,000 member accounts and the retirement savings held in about 3.5m super fund accounts.
The lobby group representing self-managed super funds says the policy would cut about $5,000 of income from the median do-it-yourself super fund retiree earning about $50,000 a year from their pension.
