Govt urged to debate not hide on pension increase
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Bob Brown: 'We've passed the bill, it is legitimate, it is constitutional, please deal with it.' (AAP: Alan Porritt, file photo)
The rift between the Senate and the House of Representatives is deepening with the clerk of the Upper House openly contradicting a ruling by his Lower House counterpart over an increase in the pension.
The clerk of the Lower House has ruled it is unconstitutional for the House of Representatives to consider a bill passed by the Senate calling for a $30 increase in the single age pension.
In a letter to the Greens Leader Bob Brown, the clerk of the Senate, Harry Evans, says there are precedents that prove that ruling to be false.
Senator Brown says the Government now has no choice but to debate the bill in the Lower House.
"This is a means of the Senate saying to the House, we've passed the bill, it is legitimate, it is constitutional, please deal with it," he said.
"There is an impasse here which cannot be let go, that is the Government using its numbers in the house, to affront the Senate by saying the Senate ought not to have passed this bill."
"It is not acceptable for the Labor Party to use its numbers in the House to block the bill from being debated," he said.
"What would happen if the reverse were to occur and the Senate were to say we don't accept the validity of the process being used in the House... we won't debate the bills in the Senate, Government would grind to a halt."
The Opposition's aged care spokeswoman Margaret May, says the issue will not disappear and the Government must address it.
"They can't continue to run and hide from this, the pension debate is not going to go away, the pensioners are not going to go away," she said.
"I would say with this interesting development we as an Opposition will continue to put pressure on the Government to introduce the legislation, support the legislation, and give the pensioners of Australian the $30 increase they so deserve."
