It didn't take long for the state government to pounce - and grab a slice of that pension increase granted to single pensioners living in public housing.
Technically this is correct. People in public housing pay a percentage of their income in rent, and that $ 30 a week was by way of public announcement. This contrasts with the rorts that are common by way of undeclared inc0me, cash in hand payments and additional employed family living on the same premises.
When the Rudd government granted that $ 30 a week pension increase they were not being kind and benevolent. Single pensioners were way below the poverty line - and sinking fast.
Savage price increases had been signalled in electricity and gas, food prices were rising much faster than the rate of inflation - and we still have an unknown outcome when the Emissions Trading Scheme ( ETS ) becomes reality.
That $ 30 a week to single pensioners was supposed to bring them back to survival level. Price increases already in the system will erode it's value and in reality the actual buying power of pensioners will be unchanged.
At least pensioners are not going backwards, but that is not the case with the unemployed and many other categories of pensioners - who were totally ignored when that pension review took place.
It seems that past and present governments relied on poverty as the whip incentive to get people actively looking for work, and to discourage others from embracing a lifestyle that relied on welfare as a means of support.
Aged pensioners fall into a different category. Reaching a certain age is not an optional thing. It happens to all of us - politicians included - but what is happening now with a pension increase being given by one level of government - and taken away by another - simply reinforces the cynical view held by many.
As some wit observed many years ago. " There's no such thing as a free lunch ! "
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