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Last night the major parties teamed up to vote down my amendment to the Royal Commission Response Bill which would have ensured at least one registered nurse is on duty at an aged care facility 24/7 by February instead of July.

The entire crossbench voted for my amendment including the Greens, the Jacquie Lambie network and David Pocock. Why the major parties would team up to vote down good legislation, caring for our aged should be a concern for Australians. My amendment is available here and the record of who voted for and against is available here.

Misinformation has been spreading that One Nation, Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts support putting pensioners on the cashless debit card. This is categorically untrue. My position on this is very clear in the HANSARD.

During debate on the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Continuation of Cashless Welfare) Bill 2020 an amendment was moved which stated:

At the end of the motion, add “, but the Senate calls on the Government to provide a commitment that no recipient of the Age Pension or a Veteran or Service Pension will be placed on the Cashless Debit Card, with the exception of those who volunteer or are referred by the Family Responsibility Commission, child protection workers, social workers or the Alcohol Mandatory Treatment Tribunal in the Northern Territory”.

Senate HANSARD, 9 December 2020

I voted YES for this amendment protecting pensioners and veterans which is shown in the official HANSARD division (voting) data, as did the Government, indicating that this commitment was accepted by them.

Senate HANSARD, 9 December 2020

With a Federal Election approaching some disingenuous actors are trying to stir up fear based on lies about One Nation. Pensions are not welfare like JobSeeker (formerly the dole) payments are.

I do not support pensioners being put on the Cashless Debit Card. My voting record on this issue couldn’t be more clear. This scare campaign against pensioners appears to have been led by Labor and activist groups aligned with them. Early in 2022, QLD State Labor MP Brittany Lauga had to apologise for misleading Parliament when she said there was a plan to put all aged pensioners on the Cashless Debit Card.

One Nation supports a raise in the Aged Pension. While the major parties will continue to play politics with the Aged Pension only One Nation can be trusted to stick to its word.

The Reserve Bank of Australia has just given $100 billion to prop up the banks but why is the government ignoring spending that would increase our productive capacity like road, coal power stations and dams?

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] All right, the RBA this week cut the interest rate down to you know, virtually nothing. 0.1% interest rates. So I mean, it’ll help people buy or stay in their homes, but there is a cost of course, self-funded retirees as we’ve talked about on the programme, who rely on investment income, and seeing their returns fall to basically nothing.

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s right. And then so, these people providing for their so-called own retirement is just hot air, because the legs had been cut out from under them now. We’re now at the point where retirees are having to spend their capital, because the return on their nest egg is almost non-existent and heading negative. And what’s disturbing is that, you know, this is going to create a lot of pressure for people at a time when people don’t need it. And by printing another a hundred billion, and giving it to the banks, they’re going to prop up the banks to do more mortgage lending. This government, the state and federal are completely ignoring the need to invest in productive capacity. We need to invest in power stations, dams, roads, ports bridges. The Iron Boomerang Scheme, the Bradfield Scheme. These and many other prime investments, opportunities in our country

[Marcus Paul] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] Are being neglected. And we need to get into building the productive capacity of our country.