SOCIAL COMMENTARY THE PENSIONERS - WHO SEES THE TRUTH?

This post originally appeared in 2012.

BILLIONS FOR WASTE,AND FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS
NOTHING FOR THE AGED

We see them in most normal situations,in the shops, on the trains and buses, in our churches. They are usually neatly dressed.They do not stand out. They are, simply put, part of the scene.They are Age Pensioners.

But do we see the truth behind their normality? Lord Tweedsmuir who, under the nom de plume John Buchan , wrote The Thirty Nine Steps, wrote before the Second World War that he foresaw man in modern societies living a life of "quiet desperation". He had in mind the multiplication of material goods and the inability of the average person to afford them. His prediction has NOT generally come true, and there is a much better distribution of material goods in modern Western societies than anyone could have predicted. But there are those who have been left behind, or passed by, as the gravy train accelerated.The young unemployed and Age Pensioners are the largest groups.

But the Age Pensioners tend to be invisible. I have always loved the English institutions advertising themselves as Homes "for Distressed Gentle Folk".So many of our Age Pensioners fall into that category. But they are "invisible" because they still appear neat and tidy in the respectable clothes they had at the end of their employed lives - maybe even to excess at that time.And they still get around normally, but notice - more of them use cheap concessional public transport - even when they have a car which has itself grown old, they cannot afford much fuel at to-day's prices, and certainly not repairs . New tyres or Registration Fees and Insurance are causes of crisis for them. 

Take note of their habits in the Supermarket - prices are always carefully checked and the cheapest option taken. Items in the basket are few and basic. The truth is, that the Pensioner has virtually lost the ability to survive financially after rent is paid , it is a fortnight of struggle until the next payment gives a brief gasp of financial "air ".

And yet our Federal Government wastes TENS OF BILLIONS of Dollars on Pink Batts, unnecessary and unwanted  extra School buildings and an unwanted and ill-judged National Broadband Network and, to rub salt into the aged wounds, gives Parliamentarians Salary rises which themselves represent between 10 and 20 Pensioners annual pension income. That was the size of their Salary rise - imagine how many pensioners could be paid from the Parliamentarian's total salary. 

About 10% of Australia's population receives the Age Pension, or roughly 2,000,000 people. Surely in a country which can squander tens of Billions of Dollars on mis-begotten policy disasters and pile cash up around its Parliamentarians, it is not too much to ask that Age Pensioners be given a more reasonable income. They deserve an income which will enable them to live reasonably and be able to plan occasional outings, rather than hanging on like grim death until at the end of their misery, death becomes a reality. Reduction in income to a stage where one cannot plan something positive creates a destructive state of hopelessness, a detachment from life and a subversion of any creative spark.

Who will relieve their plight? Certainly not people whose pre-occupations are homosexual matters, facilitating abortion and imagined Climate Change ( as if it had not always been changing , as the geophysical record shows).

These victims of the trendy and the greedy will finally get their say at the Ballot Box!