Mr CREAN (4:58 PM) —I move:

A New Tax System (Compensation Measures Legislation Amendment) Bill 1998

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House:

(1) condemns the Government for seeking to impose a regressive GST on social security recipients, such as aged and veteran pen sioners, which will dramatically increase their ordinary costs of living and erode the value of their savings; and

(2) condemns the Government for not providing adequate compensation to social security recipients and in particular for trying to short-change aged pensioners by pretending that a 4% pension increase, which would have been delivered over time anyway due to the link between pensions and wages, can compensate for the effects of a GST".

A New Tax System (Bonuses for Older Australians) Bill 1998

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House:

(1) condemns the Government for seeking to impose a regressive GST on social security recipients, such as aged and veteran pensioners, which will dramatically increase their ordinary costs of living and erode the value of their savings;

(2) condemns the Government for not providing adequate compensation to self-funded retirees and social security recipients for the erosion in the value of their retirement savings and retirement income streams due to the GST; and

(3) condemns the Government for proposing to end the current tax-free status of superannuation and life insurance investments which underpin pensions and annuities and impose a new tax on retired Australians".

A New Tax System (Income Tax Laws Amendment) Bill 1998

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House:

(1) notes that the Savings Rebate was introduced as compensation for the Howard Government abolishing Labor's superannuation co-contribution scheme which met Labor's commitment to the second tranche of income tax cuts from the One Nation statement;

(2) notes the hypocrisy of the Government announcing the abolition of the Savings Rebate only six weeks after it commenced;

(3) condemns the Government for proposing in part to pay for their GST compensation measures by abolishing another supposed compensation measure; and

(4) notes that the abolition of the Savings Rebate demonstrates that other supposed compensation measures to be introduced because of the regressive GST are not guaranteed to remain into the future".

A New Tax System (Aged Care Compensation Measures Legislation) Bill 1998

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House:

(1) condemns the Government for not adequately compensating pensioners for the effects of the GST;

(2) notes that the Bill does not make pensioner residents of nursing homes "considerably better off", but merely intends to ensure that they will not be even worse off than they already will be under the GST; and

(3) condemns the Government for not guaranteeing the same treatment for residents of public housing as it proposed in the Bill for nursing home residents".

I have not got time, because of the government's guillotine, to actually go through these amendments and deal with these measures. Let me simply say that the government's four per cent so-called benefit to pensioners is a ruse, it is a trick, because the four per cent had to be paid anyway.

Motion (by Mr Hockey) agreed to:

That the member be not further heard.