IPART just doesn’t get it, says CPSA Policy Coordinator, Paul Versteege
“IPART’s recommendation to replace the pensioner concession for the council rate rebate with a rate deferral scheme confirms its status as New South Wales’ premier blinkered bureaucracy – IPART just doesn’t get it”, said CPSA Policy Coordinator, Paul Versteege.
“Pensioners would try to avoid a council rate deferral scheme, because they know that encumbering the family home means it will make it difficult to downsize or pay for a nursing home. Deferral schemes come with compound interest rates and are really a form of a reverse mortgage. Deferral schemes threaten future housing security.
“If a council rate deferral scheme were to go ahead, better-off pensioners would avoid it, but so would those pensioners who have only the pension. They would save and scrimp to the point of malnutrition and going without heating rather than put their council rate on the house.
“The pensioner council rate rebate is worth about $250 a year and was set more than twenty years ago. It’s reasonable to expect a review to increase it, not abolish it altogether on the grounds that it would be cheaper to Government.
“CPSA calls on the NSW Government to do what it did with IPART’s review of public transport fares: can it!”
