Bikergirl

We are the same as you, two years in australia we have more saved than we managed in 4 years together in the UK

Beoz

I believe its based on how much other income you have. Meaning you can still get a pension of a certain amount if your source of super os lower enough. Not sure of exact details though.

old.sparkles

Centre link gives the maximum payment for age pension as £733 fortnight, but you can get a supplement on top (didn't check how much though). Didn't look to see if you would get rent allowance on top of that though.

Beoz

That said, I was chatting with a few expat engineers recently who are thinking of returning to the UK because of the limiting opportunities in Oz due to the recent downturn in the mining sector. Whilst they are employed, and the salary is good compared to what the were earning 3 years ago in the UK, pay rises are not happening, the opportunity to grow the career is not there, other companies are not hiring preventing moving for career growth and pay increases, and the value of the Oz dollar is coming down. For myself I always look at plan B, and I must admit, plan B for me looks like it would be in the UK. I just can't see any opportunities at the moment in Oz for what I do. Though I do a very unique thing.

chris955

I would imagine not many as that is only the start of what they get, it is topped up with all sorts of other payments.

old.sparkles

post #135

Mike at Taree

Aussie Age pension, you get a base payment plus a pharmaceutical allowance, plus a untilities allowance. If you are also renting you can get a rent assistance payment and the whole lot adds up to around $930 a fortnight.

Gibbo

You don't automatically get $733 pension. The amount you get depends on your assets. These include furniture, car, jewellery and how much you have in super and bank accounts. If you have more than a set amount you get no pension. Pharmacy benefit: you pay $5.90 per script, electricity: $50 approx off the quarterly bill, water: $148 approx off quarterly bill, reduction of rego cost, rate reduction depends on council, phone depends on telco. If you don't qualify for a pension you don't get any of these reductions. I think the cut off figure for a single home owner is $640k can't remember what it is for a couple. Can't remember how little you have to have before you get the full pension.

Amazulu

No wonder our taxes are so high

Gibbo

With all the conditions that have to be met before you get anything I would say that it is only those who have spent their lives on the dole who get that amount!

Mike at Taree

Not at all, very many elderly people worked hard all their lives but there was no compulsory super - a lot of people I know worked for the likes of local councils, the railways or labouring and accumulated princely sums such as $80k after 20 years in a job. That's the way it was. I worked for Rothmans for 15 years and came out with $27k. Outstanding.

Investment in the share market was difficult as you had to go through brokers who would sneer at anything like a modern equivalent of ten grand. From the 1970s onwards the government itself encouraged buying investment properties as a retirement option through negative gearing and many took this up, but not the majority. It's a pity that the Aussie pension was not a contributory scheme such as in the UK and that there was not a pension scheme as such in the major workplaces if you were working for decades with the likes of Holden, the Railways whatever.

Now with gen Y they whine and whinge about the taxes they pay yet in the next breath they squeal that the baby boomers bought all the property. Damned if you did, damned if you didn't.

In any case income tax in Australia is very low after election bribes by successive governments.

Mike at Taree

Now you've got me going

People on the dole and pensioners pay more of their income in taxes proportionally than many working people.

Rego is a tax
GST is a tax
Petrol tax is a tax
Alcohol duty is a tax
Rates are a tax

...

Many people who moan about taxes are really just referring to income tax as if that's all there is, they really never seem to think it through. Which suits the government just fine.

spouse of scouse

I'm looking forward to the sequel to this thread - Anyone quitting Aus due to the high cost of dying? ;-)

Zen10

The disgraceful property situation isn't the fault of the boomers. They own the property because it was more affordable in the past, sure, but there should have been a crash by now to bring it back to the average. There hasn't been a crash because governments can't afford to pay the boomers their pensions, so they are keeping property artificially high to enable them to MEW and so on. That's not the fault of the boomers, but general mismanagement of the economy. It will, of course, all come crashing down one day, but not before the boomers stop voting!

Gibbo

In 1971 a home cost 7.5 times a tradesman's yearly income. Is that much less than it costs now?