Open letter to the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull
Dear Malcolm,
As a sixty year-old who is now our prime minister may I congratulate you, at least on behalf of some of our 130,000 members, on your sudden elevation and commend the benefits of joining the FiftyUp Club.
The snap poll alongside this letter on the website may give you some idea as to your current popularity amongst the members who have previously told they are predominantly coalition supporters.
We’re in the midst of the Fair Go For Fifty Ups campaign which seeks to highlight the cost of living issues, pressures and even solutions facing one in five Australians.
Given we are a powerful electoral force and issues such as retirement incomes, tax and GST, health spending and insurance are the bread and butter of politics I thought you might be interested in some interim findings.
It’s our intention to bundle up the 16,000 responses so far, which include some robust statistics and pithy comments, and present them to politicians in Canberra next month. Perhaps you’ll be free?
When it comes to state politicians in particular eyeing off an increasing the GST we are clearly split down the middle.
While 46% say absolutely no change to the system another 46% do support increases to the 10% rate and/or to the base of goods and services on which it is levied.
Another contentious issue under increasing debate is whether the family home should be included in the pension assets test.
When asked what policy was most important to their family situation 42% nominated the family home exemption followed by 15% choosing no changes to superannuation taxes.
Given your predecessor promised there’d be no changes to super in his administration many of us might be forgiven for wondering if this remains the case.
Finally with health lobby groups calling for a review of private health insurance, and the government reportedly due to call one soon, we’d love to know where you stand.
When you were last in charge of the party in 2009 you may recall using your budget reply speech to reject Labor’s means testing of this insurance.
The scrapping of the means test remains seemingly unaffordable but it would be popular with the 51% of our respondents finding it hard to afford but ‘not prepared to go without it’.
Another 16% have had to cancel their cover because it has become a ‘luxury’.
Please consider the above and we shall forward the final poll results as soon as they are in,
Yours Sincerely,
Christopher Zinn
Fifty Up Club Spokesperson
