Earlier this year, the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) released its pre-Budget submission, which charted a fairer path back to Budget surplus by unwinding inefficient and inequitable tax and welfare arrangements, rather than through direct spending cuts targeting the vulnerable.
Following the passage on Monday evening of the Government’s reforms to the Aged Pension, which reinstated the assets test that existed prior to Peter Costello’s 2007 reforms, and lowered the cut-off rate to qualify for the part-pension whilst providing additional funding to those retirees without significant financial assets, ACOSS released a statement in support of the pension reforms, but called on the Government to conduct its retirement incomes review in good faith with an openness to reforming superannuation concessions as well:
