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(February-2003) Grey lobby gears up to tackle pension reform
The National Seniors Association (NSA) and the Council on the Ageing (COTA) — Australia’s two peak lobby groups for aged persons which formed a partnership in December ahead of an anticipated merger — plan to join forces to pressure the Government to move on pension reform, says NSA CEO and joint CEO of the combined partnership, David Deans.
NSA is a strong advocate of removing the surcharge on super, while COTA is more inclined to lobby on increases to the state pension, he says.
“We believe in the abolition of the 15 per cent surcharge, which should be discontinued for people over 50 to provide an incentive for them to save for retirement, rather than having to rely on the aged pension… COTA’s position centres more on the Federal Government increasing the dollar amount of the aged pension.”
The NSA’s agenda is split between superannuation and health care. It seeks to “simplify the super system; reduce the tax on super either across the board, or for people over 50 drawing closer to retirement; [to] move towards taxing end benefits only; [to] apply consistent rules across all super schemes and the Government’s treatment of super and tax; and [to] undertake public education on super including its tax concessions, benefits and the consequences of limited personal contributions”.
COTA is more generically focused, claiming that underlying all its work is a goal of promoting community understanding and positive attitudes to ageing.
Together, the two groups have over a quarter of a million members — NSA has 230,000 members while COTA has 40,000.
AUTHOR
Zilla Efrat
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