Centrelink consultation not over yet
Do you receive a Centrelink payment? Sydney’s GLBT community finally has the chance to have its say on how the same-sex equality changes should be communicated to the community.
A focus group for people who are in same-sex relationships and receiving government payments will be held Thursday evening, 15 January in Surry Hills.
People of all ages are needed, including young people, parents, and aged pensioners. Those fitting the criteria can call David Scamell on 9206 2048 to participate.
Based on early consultation with gay and lesbian groups, Human Services Minister Joe Ludwig has already moved to establish a help line on 136 280 for those who think they may be affected by the changes.
Some same-sex couples will receive reduced couples-rate payments as a result of the changes, while others will be entitled to widow’s pensions that previously did not recognise same-sex partners.
The lobby groups who campaigned for the equality reforms acknowledged that some same-sex couples would be worse off if treated the same as opposite-sex couples, but that was the price of equality.
Some of those affected couples and welfare rights groups have complained that the changes didn’t include a grandfather clause to exempt them from payment reductions.
Same Sex Relationship Recognition, Social Security and older people: Not equality, but discrimination twice over
I commend the Government for the passage of the Same-Sex Relationships (Equal Treatment in Commonwealth Laws-”General Law Reform) Act 2008, but am concerned about one glaring injustice the legislation has inadvertently brought about – the removal of age and disability pensions and other allowances and benefits from a class of persons who will suffer immeasurably as a result.
I understand that this is the first amendment to the Social Security Act in over 15 years that has removed a pension or benefit from a class of person and not grand-parented those already on a pension or benefit.
The nature of the injustice
Older gay men and lesbians have suffered long-standing inequality, particularly in relation to family law, health insurance, taxation, property rights, access to employer benefits, access to insurance and superannuation, death and disability entitlements, compensation, laws of succession, and employer benefits for spouses.
Social Security policy has evolved in response to social change, allowing for savings provisions for those who have been historically disadvantaged. In many ways, the situation of gay and lesbian couples now affected by Act is analogous to that faced by women during the phasing out of Social Security payments targeting women, due to the changing role of women in Australian society.
Many older people in same-sex relationships will be precluded from Social Security entitlements under pension and allowance income and assets tests due to their partner’s income and assets, despite the fact that historically they have had no or limited rights to other entitlements (including taxation, employer, disability, superannuation and insurance entitlements) because their status as a partner was not recognised. Given that the raft of reforms the Government has now introduced has come too late to affect their accrual of such entitlements; it is unjust and unfair that older people now bear the effects of the disadvantageous aspects of the reforms.
Financial planning and accruing assets to fund retirement is a long term strategy. Older people in or nearing retirement, now have little or no chance to rearrange finances. They have not had the benefits of relationship recognition in their working life to assist in accruing assets & now the rules have been shifted under their feet in retirement or at the 11th hour. This is unfair and unjust as many of those effected have no capacity to pick themselves up and move on. There is not even any phase in period.
Precedents for grand parenting
This is in marked contrast to the situation when many Social Security payments for women were phased out, when Social Security legislation in the past also caught up with social change.
When new claims for Widow Pension and Partner Allowance were made unavailable, those payments were retained for older widows, divorcees and separated women whose adult life was one of financial dependency on their partner, with no or limited accrual of superannuation entitlements during periods of employment.
Similarly, when the Age Pension eligibility age for women was raised from 60 years to 65 years in 1995 in response to changing societal values about women’s increased labour market participation and reduced dependence on their partners, that modest increase in age eligibility was to be phased in over some 20 years.
The last reforms to the Disability Support Pension (15 to 30 hours eligibility) grand parented those pensioners eligible under the 15 hour test.
There is a particular need for savings provisions for older people who would be adversely affected by the Social Security amendments. Members of same sex couples have lived until now with certain societal limitations and their own particular expectations. That is vastly different from a person in their twenties who may now enter into a gay or lesbian relationship expecting equality before the law, and acknowledging their relationship’s -˜de facto’ status and presenting the relationship as such to family, friends, colleagues, employers, the Australian Tax Office, their superannuation fund, Medicare, etc.
There are also a number of older gay men in particular who are on DSP because of chronic illness associated with HIV. Many of these people take a number of medications to stay alive. The loss of the DSP and the healthcare card could well be a death blow to some force many with chronic conditions further into poverty and have even more adverse health outcomes.
Discrimination twice over
Older gay and lesbian couples have lived and worked anticipating their relationships will not be recognised under Social Security law and without any expectation of equality before the law generally. They have had no expectation of forced financial inter-dependency via recognition of their couple status under Social Security law. To apply Social Security means tests to people who have long been disadvantaged before the law is effectively doubling their experience of discrimination.
There is no good social policy reason for the government to take this approach and to effectively punish those with chronic illnesses or older gay and lesbians in or approaching retirement. This is not equality for older same sex couples: this is discrimination twice over.
I also note that Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report Same-Sex: Same Entitlements and the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs inquiry into the Bill recommended that the Government give further consideration to what administrative or regulatory mechanisms may be available to appropriately manage the impact of the reforms on same-sex couples who may have benefits reduced under the changes.
Cabinet chose to not give any further consideration to those issues and recommendations, particularly for older people, in what would be seen by many as a spiteful and mean-spirited act.
Mechanisms need to be implemented for people older than 55 in same sex relationships to not be regarded as de facto couples for Social Security purposes.
Write to Minister Macklin [email protected] to express your concerns and to demand that the government acts to protect older people
Good old Centrelink! – Yeah I trust them, NOT!!!!
Oliver,
Your a lucky man, life has been good to you, I hope you never fall on hard times.
Oliver,
You are a lucky man, life has been good to you. I hope and pray that you never have top eat you words. Its a long way to fall when you stand on the self rightous ground.
I think the Government is too generous with handing out Welfare, like lollipops. Ive worked hard all my life, and all I hear from above is just excuses! excuses! Nobodys ever tapped me on the shoulder and given me some change or told me “Well Done”. Wake up people!
Oliver – I suggest you take a look at South Africa or India which does not have government assistance payments like Centrelink, Look at all the slums in South Africa or india which have resulted from no government assistance. Its far better to have a goverment providing assistance even though some people may take advantage of it.
Just to clarify…Widow Allowance, bereavement benefits, partner concession cards, Independence recognition for young people (12 month + relationship), family home asset exemption (partner in nursing home) etc may be useful for some of us. However, since 20/3/97, there are no new Widow Pensions. There is no “savings” provision (grandmothering) and no special retrospective application.
Go and tell URBIS that without grandfathering protections old gay and lesbian pensioners have little to say to centrelink other than why are you threatening me and forcing me out of the closet and potentially taking my house away if I need a nursing home – WHY???????
Those not on pensions can go and relay the stories of those who are and what they will lose, and how they NEVER had the circumstances to plan for this disaster, all their lives and are now 90.
Where are the gay icons and the gay personalities now, silence is deafening. Action is needed, not feigned sympathy, although that is rare too.
Well Oliver I wonder if you have grandparents who might have fought in the war or paid taxes all their lives too but never had any superannuation because they were too poor – they deserve an age pension and you have a hide.
How dare you insult your elders. The elders in our community including those who have suffered and still do deserve us all to be united not putting them down.
Demand that they be protected and not 100 dollars a week worse off, and threatened and afraid. Join us in doing this, unlike media celebrities who seem to have lost their voices.
Have you ever stood on a soup line, or at a Centrelink office, or sought help from a welfare agency. If not lucky you, if so show some empathy.
I am appalled at our community – the Jews stood by their own no matter what we just pour scorn on each other and deserve to reap the penalties that result from such an attitude and such a selfish non communal approach to our own kind.
happy 09 and here’s to grandfathering and protecting our elders, as Indigenous people do.
My partner recieves a partial centrelink payment due to having a child. She has the child from rape at 18. Not in anyway her fault. She has had to work since then without being able to complete her studies, and the centrelink payment supplements her income.
What about those with a disability and therefore not able to work. What about those, who are studying short term in order to not requirement any income supplement.
What a naive statement from a clearly very naive person.
I work full time and am very happy to assist through my tax those who need it, and those who need empowering. What we need is services that teach empowerment rather than judgemental people presuming.
I have never received or relied on a Centrelink payment all my life. Its sad that my and many other hard working peoples taxes are paid out to Sympathy seekers and people who always have an “Excuse”