Brown calls on banks to cut rates

Single aged pensioners cannot afford to wait until next year for an increase to pensions, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said today.

"The government should increase the single aged pension by $30 a week for Christmas," Senator Brown said.

"I find the Opposition's sudden concern for pensioners remarkable considering the Coalition neglected pensioners for 11 years."

Australia's pensioners and carers have good cause for hope that next year's budget will come to their aid, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said after debate in the Senate this afternoon.
The government and opposition opposed Greens and Democrats amendments to limit the Rudd government's $30.8 billion tax cuts to low and middle income Australians.
Senator Brown said the cuts for high income earners should go instead to pensioners and carers and services including public schools and hospitals. He criticised Labor for having lost its core social justice ideology.

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown today called on the Liberal party to back the campaign to get a decent rise in the aged pension.
 
"The Greens have been campaigning for a minimum $30 a week increase in the single aged pension since June 2007. It is a sensible, affordable policy," Senator Brown said.
 
"This is a new era for the Liberal party. They've got a huge review of their policies and giving pensioners a fair go should be at the top of the list," Senator Brown said.
 

The PM earns in a fortnight what pensioners live on for a year and has forgotten how tough they do it, contends Bob Brown

The Rudd Government's inaugural budget spent $31 billion in inflationary tax cuts, $40 billion in "future funds" for education and infrastructure projects, $22 billion for defence and $500 million on a "clean coal" fund.

The budget was a lost opportunity to do something for the pensioners, writes Bob Brown.

The Prime Minister and Treasurer are not self-interested when they shape the national budget - nonetheless both will get $91 per week from Labor's tax cuts next year, rising to $116 in 2010.

But pensions are stuck. Australia's 1.2million pensioners, the working families who built this country during the last half century, get zero increase in their weekly pay.

The prospect of more than one million Australian pensioners getting help to meet soaring food, housing and transport costs has been buried by the 2008 budget, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said today.
"The budget leaves these grandest of Australia's working families struggling on the poverty line," Senator Brown said.

The first Rudd / Swan Budget fails miserably to meet the urgent challenge of climate change, Australians Greens Leader Bob Brown said tonight.
"It is blinkered budgeting. It squibs on building the carbon-constrained Australia needed to tackle global warming. This is not futuristic. It is Howard-Costello lite," Senator Brown said.
"Labor is spending 40 times as much on Defence ($22 billion) as it is on tackling climate change - to around half a billion in the coming year."

85% of Australians want pension increase: poll
 
The Prime Minister should listen to the public and raise the aged pension by at least $30 a week in the May budget, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said today.
 
"Aged pensioners are Australia's forgotten battlers," Senator Brown said.
 
"Prime Minister Rudd should increase the single aged pension by $30 a week in the May budget. Australia's 2 million pensioners have been left out-there hasn't been a substantial increase the aged pension since 1993," Senator Brown said.
 

Greens Leader Bob Brown says the Rudd government is being hard-hearted by leaving Australia's carers and pensioners in limbo over future income.
"Prime Minister Rudd is pretty obvious in letting these very low-income people know, between the lines, that there will be no increase in payments for them in the May budget. They may not lose but they certainly won't win while the big end of town gets the lion's share of the $31 billion in tax cuts in the May budget," Greens leader Bob Brown said today.

Don't put Gunns before pensioners – Brown
 
As food prices soar, the Rudd government should increase the aged pension by at least $30 a week instead of handing out $31 billion in inflationary tax cuts, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
 
"There hasn't been a substantial increase in the aged pension since 1993. A single pensioner lives on $268 a week, or $13,936 a year. That is not enough to live on," Senator Brown said.