Pensioners in marginal Coalition electorates will be among the hardest hit by changes to their payments in the new year, with those facing cuts in Sarah Henderson’s seat of Corangamite and Ann Sudmalis’s seat of Gilmore set to lose a total of more than $13m a year.
The effect of the cuts to some pensioners’ payments from 1 January is revealed in a new Australian Council of Trade Unions analysis of answers to questions on notice by the social services minister, Christian Porter, late last year.
The government has been on the defensive over the pension changes, with Malcolm Turnbull answering a union robocall blitz with a recording of his own reassuring pensioners the “vast majority” will be unaffected.
Under the changes, passed with Greens support in 2015, singles with savings and assets of more than $547,000 (excluding the family home) will lose the aged pension, while couples with savings and assets of $823,000 will lose the pension.
The changes will push 91,000 people off the pension and reduce the payment for 236,000 but 171,500 will get a $30 a week boost to their pension. The human services minister, Alan Tudge, told Radio National on Thursday more than 90% of pensioners would be better off or no worse off and only pensioners with “high assets above and beyond their family home” would receive a cut.
The answers provided by Porter show that 3,490 pensioners will receive cuts in Henderson’s southern Victorian seat of Corangamite, losing $150 a fortnight on average each.
In Sudmalis’s highly marginal seat of Gilmore, on the New South Wales south coast, 3,480 pensioners face cuts averaging $144 a fortnight.
In both electorates the gross total of pension cuts is more than $13m. However, the answers do not show the distribution of the pensioners the government says will be better off under the changes.
Other Coalition-held electorates in which pensioners face losses totalling more than $10m a year include Chris Crewther’s outer Melbourne seat of Dunkley, the NSW north coast seat of Page, held by the Nationals’ Kevin Hogan, and Lucy Wicks’s seat of Robertson, on the NSW central coast.
The Queensland electorates of Peter Dutton (Dickson) and George Christensen (Dawson) are both significantly affected, with more than 2,000 pensioners in each set to lose all or part of their pension.
The secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Dave Oliver, said the data showed the government “is cutting pensioners to the bone over the Christmas break”.
The ACTU has launched robocalls from a woman, “Leanne”, about her father receiving a letter from the government saying that Turnbull is “cutting the pension”, which the government says falsely implies everyone’s pension will be cut.
“Hello, I’m Malcolm Turnbull and I want to set the record straight about recent changes to pensions,” the prime minister says in his response message. “The vast majority of pensioners are unaffected. Tens of thousands of pensioners with modest assets are better off.
“Pensions will continue to go up twice a year and the family home remains exempt from the assets test. Our older Australians should be respected, not deliberately frightened for political gain.”
Oliver said it was “farcical” that the government had labelled anonymous union robocalls “despicable”, even comparing the tactic to a “coward’s punch”, then recorded its own robocall.
On Friday, Bill Shorten labelled Turnbull “the nation’s No 1 crybaby” over the pension controversy and said he was “completely wrong” to claim people weren’t affected.
“I’ve got a Christmas tip for Malcolm Turnbull – if you don’t want people to complain about your pension cuts, don’t cut the pension,” he said.
Asked if he condemned the ACTU’s robocalls, Shorten replied: “I am not going to condemn people telling other Australians what’s going on.
“The fact of the matter is if a robocall is such a bad idea from the unions, why is Malcolm Turnbull doing it? You can’t say it is bad when one person does it and then do it yourself.”
Shorten said Turnbull should “stop complaining about the messenger and start dealing with the message” – the fact that 330,000 people would lose all or part of their pension from 1 January.
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