Life in Retirement: The Age Pension from the Experience of Culturally Diverse Pensioners

1 Jul, 2018

The Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV) represents the voice of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities in Victoria. ECCV regularly conducts consultations with people from culturally diverse backgrounds to understand and examine the socio-economic factors that adversely affect these communities. Over the years, older people from culturally diverse communities from time to time raised the inadequacy of the Age Pension as a barrier to sustaining an acceptable standard of living in Australia.

ECCV decided to prioritise this significant issue, especially in light of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2017 (the Bill) that is currently before the House of Representatives. The first measure of the Bill seeks to extend residency timeframe requirements to be eligible for the Age Pension. The second measure seeks to cease the Age Pension supplement payment after six weeks overseas, or immediately for permanent departures. This raises concerns that the two measures would further limit the payment rate and restrict eligibility criteria for pensioners, especially individuals from culturally diverse backgrounds. ECCV recognised this as an opportune time to accept the request of the community to analyse their life on retirement on the Age Pension.

Media Enquiries

For media enquiries or more information, please contact:
Email: media@eccv.org.au
Phone: 0431 091 738

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