Welfare

[1061]

[Culprit]

[Morrigu]

Whatever - they can get stuffed we're planning on retiring to the cottage in Spain and we will spend our money as we want - what we would get as a pension we will save on airfares anyway and we don't have to put up a bloody pool fence!!!!

[partypie]

Something needs to done about the family home being exempt from the age pension assessment, not so much because of the pension itself but the health care card that comes with it entitles quite well off people to a lot of other subsidised services where demand is much greater than supply, such as home help, intended to keep people out of nursing homes. Home help staff are under the pump to clean and maintain these large homes in the short time frame allotted to them.
It's highly unlikely because most of the people who are in that category vote for the party in power at the moment.
TP, I am pretty sure nursing home standards have risen, even in the short time since your mum was in one. My mother is generally well cared for, although some staff seem pretty callous.
1061, keep up the good work, and don't burn out.

[Morrigu]

So someone who bought their home many years ago in an area that wasn't considered desirable at the time - think inner city, old working class , now yuppified - is now of an age to get the pension but can't because some nong in Canberra has decided an arbitration number means they are too well off to get the pension???

Rich apparently cause their house is valued at x amount of dollars - but many already live without heat, without cooling and without adequate food as they may be asset ( they own their home) rich but are income poor and you want them to not be able to get the pension because they own a home and house and land values have increased?

Why the hell should people who own their own homes be forced to sell and move whilst people who have either never bothered to work or have worked and spent their money on having a good life get government support no strings attached??

Different if you have to go into care - you have to move so reasonable to sell your home -to pay for where you you are going to live ( no interest in inheritance don't believe in " birth right).

If this is the way of the future then buggar going without to pay off your own home, buggar saving, buggar putting more money in super - enjoy it, blow every cent having a good time or buggar working at all!!

[partypie]

Not saying that at all, Morrigu. I'm saying that people living in million dollar houses should be paying a greater share than they do for aged care services, with you and me, taxpayers paying less.

[think positive]

[stui magpie]

What a fkn strange conversation going on here.

The value of someone's home should be utterly irrelevant for a means test as long as they're living in it. You can't spend a valuation.

My mother is ineligible for the pension, not because of her house being worth too much or because she has too much money, but because her name is on the deed to my place so the house is considered her asset and the money I pay onto the mortgage (and I've paid all of it) is counted against her as well.

So she scrimps and saves (even though I tell her not to) while other people with direct access to a lot more coin get the pension. Yeah, the system is real fair.

And yeah, I've tried a couple of times in years gone by to change the arrangement anticipating this kind of thing but mums (dickhead) accountant made ever option out to seem too hard so she baulked at change and left it as it was.

[Dave The Man]