Question to Minister Jenny Macklin, Senators Trish Crossin, Claire Moore, et al: since when did feminism condone compulsory loss of rights for  categories of women, for example a sole parent, because some of them may have needed “protection”?

This paternalistic (maternalistic) policy making undermines the idea that women are full citizens with equal rights. Women who are in need of protection have the right and obligation to decide, maybe collectively, whether they hand over their rights to others. Please don’t use women’s needs as an excuse for bad policy as it sounds a bit like Philip Ruddock wearing his Amnesty badge while persecuting asylum seekers.

Read the report here and the submissions here.

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Changes to the pension and benefit system are always fraught because of the very mixed views in the community about who is entitled to public support. WELA would therefore support an independent body to set rates, changes and rises. An arms length process may counter political populist plays and moral panics about the potential problems of paying for the ageing population. It should also cover related expenditures and concessions such as the current allocation of resources for retirement that create the gross inequities of the Superannuation contributions taxation concessions.  Low income pensioners are being squeezed at the same time as higher income pensioners gain extra payments and major tax expenditures go to the really affluent. An independent body could oversee a total expenditure (cash and concessions) of over $50 B per annum, which is currently grossly maldistributed.

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