The Prime Minister’s office has confirmed that the eligibility threshold for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card will be indexed by CPI. Responding to a letter from our President, Andrea Williams, the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary Josh Frydenberg said indexation will start in September 2014. This was separately confirmed by the Department of Social Services in a letter to the President of ACPSRO, Ron Dean.

This is good news, but not as good as it might have been. The other matter raised in our correspondence with the Prime Minister was to seek a one-off increase in the eligibility threshold to take account of the 13 years the threshold has been unindexed since it was set in 2001. This proposal was politely noted by the Department of Social Services and not mentioned by the Prime Minister’s office. Regrettably, all those who have lost their eligibility over that period are unlikely to have it restored.

Regarding indexation of pensions, we understand the legislation required to introduce the fairer indexation the Government is committed to for some military pensions is to be introduced in the Budget session of Parliament and, other things being equal, it will not be opposed.

We await the outcome of the Government’s Commission of Audit with some trepidation. A number of the suggestions that have been made to ease pressure on the Commonwealth budget are not encouraging and the 2014-15 budget may have unpleasant surprises. Keep fingers crossed.

Tim Terrell, PNGAA rep. on ACPSRO