Pensions promise broken by Abbott

This is what Tony Abbott said only days before the Sept 7th election:

''I want to give people this absolute assurance: no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions and no changes to the GST.'' Read more

This is what his gov is saying now:

''This [the disability support pension] is one of the fast-growing areas of government expenditure,'' he said on Sunday. ''The Commission of Audit is looking at this whole area for us … and is expected to make some recommendations on how that can best be achieved by the end of January.'' Read more

In the article they interview a real live disability pensioner, a Mrs White, who suffers from MS. She tells her story of how hard it is to actually get on the DSP in the first place, let alone have some kind of review done. I'd agree. Although I seemed to easily jump through all the hoops, it still took about a month to go through the process.

Then there is the sense of betrayal. Even though people like me and her will be fine, the fact that we pensioners are being singled out for some sort of cuts to the system whilst the Abbott gov sets about buying $3billion worth of drones, is obscene. Mrs White puts it bluntly:

Jacqui White, of Symonston, considers the breach of faith is on a par with Julia Gillard's broken ''no carbon tax under a government I lead'' pledge and ''probably worse'', given Mr Abbott did not have to form a minority government. 
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She said the move had created uncertainty and fear for her and the estimated 822,000 other people dependent on the hard-to-get pension, which amounts to an annual cost of about $15 billion. ''It took me two years just to qualify to apply,'' she said. ''I believe it's even harder now.'' Read more

I might add that illness often includes much more anxiety than is normally in the general population. A threat to pensioners on our measly money would only exacerbate that anxiety.