Mr BEAZLEY (2:33 PM) —My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the thousands of complaints received by members from pensioners who have not received as GST compensation the full $1,000 savings bonus promised to them at the last election. Why did you promise $1,000 to every person over 60 years of age when you had no intention of delivering on that promise?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —Once again the Leader of the Opposition has deliberately misrepresented a policy. The response that I have had from pensioners and self-funded retirees has not been in the terms as outlined by the Leader of the Opposition. In fact I have received, as have a large number of my colleagues, a significant number of calls and letters from pensioners and self-funded retirees saying that they had no idea that there was any savings bonus at all. They were immensely grateful that the government has introduced it. I say to pensioners and self-funded retirees of Australia that we have, as we always do, delivered in full on the commitments that we have made to that section of the Australian population.

In the process of telling them that, I remind them that, when the Australian Labor Party was last in government, it went to an election attacking a GST; it did not say anything about changing the wholesale sales tax system. When it had been deceitfully re-elected, without warning, without mandate, without justification and without compensation it then increased the wholesale sales tax at every point of the rate scale range to the great detriment of the pensioners and self-funded retirees of this country. When I look back at what private health insurance has done for self-funded retirees, I think of the extension of the health benefit card, the savings bonuses and the many other changes that have been made that have been of enormous benefit to self-funded retirees. It is no wonder that a great volume of the messages that I have received since 1 July are messages of satisfaction and gratitude from the retired people of Australia. They know they now have a government that will guarantee their economic security and not a government that will run their country into massive debt.