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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Tuesday, 3 August 2004) . . Page.. 3360 ..

Mrs Dunne: Those people on CSS pensions and who were an ASO 3 all their life don’t have a very big pension. It might be a CSS pension, but it ain’t very big.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR QUINLAN: There are two ways you can look at the world, particularly the world of those who have ceased work. On the one hand, there are those who are being rewarded for providing for themselves in retirement because of, as you said, the thrift and hard work of their lifetimes.

On the other hand, you can recognise that some of those people have enjoyed a lifetime of advantage over many others. They have had the opportunity, because of their life of work, to receive a pension—to have a pension accrue on their behalf—or to earn enough money to be able to provide for themselves in the future. I gave the example of many Commonwealth public servants.

But there are so many other people in the community who never had that advantage. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, talked about fairness in your first sentence. Fairness, as far as this side of the house is concerned, is helping those who really need it. Mr Cornwell, in his speech, identified that phrase—attributed to me as being an ideological position—

Mr Smyth: It sounds like it.

MR QUINLAN: By his interjection Mr Smyth is saying that helping those who really need it is not part of fairness. That is what your argument comes down to. You talk about equality, but you want people to be treated unequally. You want people who are on reasonably comfortable incomes—

Mr Smyth: Did you say that, Mr Deputy Speaker?

Mrs Dunne: Did you say that?

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don’t think so.

MR QUINLAN: That is what the argument comes down to. Every now and then Mr Cornwell brings into his conversation the words “low income retirees” and those people on the Commonwealth health benefit card. You can have $50,000—you can have $80,000 as a couple—and get that card. That card entitles you to pharmaceutical benefits and that is it. Even the Commonwealth does not spread a whole raft of concessions to someone with that card. It qualifies you for about a $20 discount per prescription. That is what it sums up to.

You would have all of the concessions in Canberra go to people at that level. That is beyond what the Commonwealth will do and that would not be fair treatment. That would be money conceded to a group of people who do not need it as much as others in this community. If you call that fairness, you have a funny idea of fairness.

MR STEFANIAK (4.45): I always thought a self-funded retiree was someone who put money away to provide for his or her retirement; who was not the beneficiary of

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