Rudd’s relief for gay pensioners
The Rudd Government has made good on an undertaking to allow concession cardholders to choose whether their partner’s name appears on their Centrelink concession cards.
The names of both partners will be optional for those on the pension. The provision is an attempt to soften the blow for same-sex couples on Centrelink having to declare their relationships by July 1.
Changes will apply to holders of Low Income Health Care Cards and Pensioner Concession Cards.
Gay and lesbian rights lobbyists have raised fears many elderly people on the pension would be unfairly positioned if, having lived in a closeted relationships all their lives, they were suddenly forced to include the name of their same-sex partner on their pension card.
When launching the new Centrelink Couples are Couples advertisements last month, Human Services minister Senator Joe Ludwig announced changes to Centrelink concession cards.
From July, any customer who would like a concession card reissued without their partner’s details will be able to do so, he said.
Both cards will remain valid and can be used by the customers as they choose.
In the past most concession cards included the name of the customer, the customer’s partner and any dependent children.
Centrelink will not automatically provide two cards. Customers who specifically don’t want their partners’ details to appear on a card will have to contact Centrelink directly to have a second card issued.
Centrelink general manager Hank Jongen said the changes were made following privacy concerns raised by the community.
Centrelink has been conducting regular community engagement meetings with members of the gay and lesbian community to discuss the implementation of these reforms.
It has also conducted extensive research to help maximise the understanding of the reforms across the gay and lesbian community.
Changes to details on concession cards came as a result of this research, and ongoing dialogue with members of the gay and lesbian community.
info: For more about the same-sex reforms Centrelink customers can visit centrelink.gov.au or call the dedicated inquiry line on 13 6280.
Treating homosexual and hetrosexual defacto couples equally at Centrelink is a positive move. Welcome to the real world!
It should promote relationship stability – having to support a partner financially is a strong motivator to consider whether a relationship is committed enough to warrant a live-in arrangement when financial responsibilities are required.
One day when Gay Marriage becomes legal, the complaining will still never stop. This is what happens when you separate yourself into a “Community”
Well said Chris. I like your tying in the women’s rights to equal pay campaign with this issue. The socio-economic aspects of women’s lives are still systemically overlooked. And it cannot be said too strongly that marriage and legal and social coupling have whiskers! For a number of years too some heterosexuals have decried the enforced couples approach. There are many women who have been disadvantaged by the traditional social security/ Centrelink scrutiny of their lives. The legal recognition of de factos was to try & prevent men leaving women & children without economic support – back in the days when fewer women were in the paid workforce. It may have been advantageous at one time, now it’s got big drawbacks.
And as for lesbians: feminists have worked – indeed fought – for women’s autonomy, so why throw that away now for some quasi rights? Why call it rights if to gain them some people have to loose? So would the SSO editors/subbies please refrain from misleading headings such as “Rudd’s relief . . .” No relief – it’s Ruddy GRIEF.
The politically naive Queer lobby thinks it has had a great victory with the new federal equality legislation. Slowly many of you will soon wake up to what you have really achieved. You have bought into a deeply faulty model, and are still agitating for more.
Marraige is a deeply flawed institution based on the patriarchal treatment of women as chattels. Generations of women have suffered abuse thanks to the economic power of men over their lives. Despite some small level of emancipation fought for by feminists the interdependent couple model means one person in a relationship often still has more power.
Until now most lesbians and gays have been able to maintain a proud, safer self-sufficiency. With an independent income an individual maintains control over their own fate. This is now being lost, and you will soon see the results in greater levels of abuse, humiliation and relationship breakdown.
Even enlightened heterosexuals are agitating for individual incomes for all people. I heard one on radio comment on how primitive 20th century the financially merged couple model will be seen in the future. Why do you think women fought for a living wage in the days of a male wage and severe restrictions on female employment? I will tell you. It was because being financially dependent on someone else is deeply dis-empowering.
Soon those of you who haven’t noticed that the cute Centrelink toothbrush ads, or think they don’t apply to you, or think that it is just a small price to pay for equality will wake up.
When you do join the campaign for a grandfathering of Centrelink laws, and the campaign for “one individual one independent income”.
One cannot but help be cynical about this response to privacy requirements. Not that I’m wanting to have lesbians & gays be tied into the one card approach if they want the two – but it smacks of trying to soften the blow. Without protections for gays and lesbians already in the system the deeming of clients who are same-sex relationship members to be couples is blatantly unfair. The denial or decrease of payments is a disadvantage that lobbyists for equal treatment should not ignore. Politicians talk about equality coming with gains and losses – frankly that narrow approach stinks. There is no consideration for those who are at the end of their working lives through age and/or disability or carer’s responsibilities and therefore are unable to better their finances to offset such losses.
And these “regular community meetings” that Centrelink supposedly has conducted – well there are hundreds of gays & lesbians who even if they DID know about them would not trust them & so wouldn’t attend. The government & Centrelink should get real & acknowledge that they’ve made a dog’s breakfast of this whole so called “equal treatment” scheme with regards Centrelink.