E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: Age Pension, Indexation, Superannuation, Commonwealth Rent Assistance, Concession Cards, Centrelink
BEC WILSON, HOST: Hello, and welcome back to Prime Time. Today we’re talking about the age pension because it’s changing. This week, the Government’s twice-yearly indexation of the age pension rates have arrived. From the 20 September 2024, the pension will rise to $1,144.40 fortnight, or about $29,754 per year for single retirees, and $1,725.20 per fortnight, or around about $44,855 per year for couples combined. At the same time, the assets test thresholds and the income test thresholds will go up. So, the sweet spot where you can maximise the income from the age pension and superannuation will have shifted. More about this in my newsletter. In addition to this, the deeming rate caps have gone up. Rent Assistance has also increased by about $23 a fortnight. But I know you have lots of questions about Centrelink, the age pension, housing and concession cards. So, joining me is federal MP Kate Thwaites. She’s the brand-new assistant Minister for Women, Social Security and Ageing, and we’re talking all the things you wanted to know. Kate Thwaites, welcome to the show.
KATE THWAITES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SECURITY, AGEING AND WOMEN: Thank you. Really great to be joining you today.
WILSON: Now, this is a brand new role. Tell us about it and what you’re hoping to achieve.
THWAITES: Yes, I’ve just taken up this role in the last month and I’m really excited by it, particularly having the combination of Social Security, Ageing and Women. It allows me to talk to people about so many parts of their life and so many parts of their life where government and government support is really important to them. So, I’ve already really enjoyed a lot of conversations – particularly with older Australians – about how they want to be supported to age well, how they want to feel secure into retirement, and also conversations with older women, because I’m really aware that, for a lot of older women, they are facing a more insecure period as they approach retirement. And we do know that, on average, older women retire with 25 per cent less superannuation than men. So, I want to make sure that older women really feel like their voices are being heard and championed in government. But as I said, I’ve already enjoyed a lot of great conversations with older Australians and I’m looking forward to having a lot more.
WILSON: Excellent. I mean, the women need all the help we can give them. Now, people may not be aware of what’s available to them, and there have been some changes. So, why don’t we start there?
THWAITES: Absolutely. Look, I think I would start here by saying that, you know, as a Labor Government, we see the pension as just one of those essentials of Australian society, because older Australians obviously have worked hard all their life and they deserve to be supported into older age and to feel secure in retirement. At the moment, the pension is being indexed and that is important. The pension is keeping up with cost-of-living increases. So check the rate of your pension, it will be going up. And it is something that, through regular indexation, since our government was first elected two years ago, pension rates have increased by $146 per fortnight for singles and $220 per fortnight for a couple combined. And I know that that is really important for people at this time, when people are facing those cost-of-living pressures. The other piece in the pension space that we’ve done is that when we came into office in 2022, we froze deeming rates for two years, which is really important for pensioners. So, we have now extended that for a further year. And again, I know that that is going to make a real difference to a lot of aged pensioners. So those are some of the big things that I do want people to know about with the pension. Probably the other piece that I would talk to you about – and again, it’s something that older Australians have already been talking to me a lot about – is older Australians wanting to do some work while still receiving their pension. It’s so important and, you know, a lot of older Australians, they want to still be involved. We know they bring a lot to workplaces. Workplaces benefit from having older Australians there. But I’ve also heard from people that they feel a bit frightened that if they’re doing work, their pension is going to get cut off. So, we’re really trying to address that and make it easier for people to combine work and the Age Pension. We have permanently raised the Work Bonus Income Bank, so that’s the amount you can earn before it affects your pension. And additionally, we’ve made it easier for people to sort of move between work and the pension to try and take away that concern around, well, what would this mean for my pension. So, those are, again, some really big changes.
WILSON: It’s probably a really good place to kick off because I’m going to get you into the detail today, because I really think everybody comes to a session like this to have all their questions answered and hopefully we unpick some of them. How it works. Right. So, I would love you to start, maybe we should start at the top and talk about how the income and the assets tests for the age pension are structured, because a lot of people here today aren’t at the point of getting the pension yet. We’re still looking forward into how we plan for retirement. We’re in midlife and thinking about that process of navigating this pension. So, how does it work and are they likely to change before we get there?
THWAITES: Well, look, certainly at the moment there are no changes being planned to how income and assets tests work around the pension. I think that is important to reassure people around that. The way the Australian pension is designed, as I said, it is really designed to recognise that it is an important safety net for older Australians, recognising that contribution that they have made to our community all their life and, in many cases, they are still making. And so there is an income and asset test on the pension. I will tell people that they need to talk to Services Australia about their own personal circumstances. I don’t want to give people advice about how that would work in their circumstance. But it is designed to make sure that people are supported to have a good standard of living into retirement, recognising that people often have a range of sources that they’re drawing income from. Some people will have superannuation, some people may have other assets and then be looking to the pension as well. Sometimes have queries from people who come from, say, a European background and aren’t as used to our system of a pension that is targeted. The difference here is you don’t pay into your pension all your life. As I said, it is really based on need and making sure that people can access that safety net. It’s important for people to really go through that in terms of what it would mean for them on their own individual basis. And a service that I will highlight here that I think a lot of people don’t know about, but that is really valuable through Services Australia, the Financial Information Service. Now, this is a free education and information service that Services Australia run. And even if you’re not a Services Australia customer, so if you’re not receiving a pension or any sort of payment from Services Australia, you can still access this service and they can help you with retirement planning. So, I would absolutely recommend that to people as a source of really strong, credible advice to do that work with you. Something that we’ve done recently is to make it easier for people to access Services Australia. I know that that can be frustrating for people sometimes. So, we have employed thousands more staff at Services Australia, but also set up a system where now you can book appointments to see someone face-to-face. And again, I know for older Australians that face-to-face interaction is often important. So, get in touch with them, book your appointment and use that Financial Information Service there.
WILSON: I want to throw a little curveball at you. You talk about it as a safety net, but more than 64% of Australians over the age of 67 access the pension. That’s more than a safety net. That’s a key ingredient of retirement income. Is that where you want to see it continue?
THWAITES: You know, it is a key ingredient of retirement income. And referring to it as a safety net is to make sure that all Australians know that it is there. It is paid at a much higher level than the rest of our Social Security payments, again recognising the expectation that it will support older Australians to have a good standard of living now and into the future. Of course, the profile of people who are ageing in our country will change over time. At the moment, a lot of the people who are accessing the pension won’t have had a lifetime of contributing to superannuation. And I talked earlier about women in particular who, you know, often over their lifetime, will have taken significant periods out for caring. They may have worked in low-paid industries all their life. We do know that. Again, as I said, for those older women, that’s particularly an issue. The pension, again, as a Labor member, I can say confidently the pension will always be there and it will always be important that through the pension, we are giving older Australians a good standard of living. The profile of what people bring to their retirement, I think, will change over time as we come to the period where more Australians have been building up–
WILSON: Superannuation for longer, and hopefully that means less people will get the pension and it won’t be something that they have to change the rules on. It would just be something we price people out of one day.
THWAITES: Again, as I said, the pension does provide for a decent standard of living. But of course, older Australians, you know, who’ve worked, contributed to their superannuation and, you know, and who are living longer as well, want to live well into the future. And those are all the things that the system is really designed to support them to do.
WILSON: All right, I want to come back to the assets and income tests for one question I know a lot of people feel passionately about. There’s ongoing debate about including the family home in the assets test. We know, this assets test is incredible, right, the way it does eliminate the family home before it calculates your assets. Is this really being considered and how would it impact retirees?
THWAITES: There are no plans to include the family home in the assets test. We recognise, again, for older Australians, the family home is something that is very important and deeply personal to them. So, absolutely no plans to change that at all.
WILSON: I’m sure that will keep peace in a lot of people’s minds. Let’s move on to understanding our eligibility. How does Centrelink ensure that people understand whether they’re eligible for Age Pension and carer payments? Because, frankly, 6 per cent of the workforce at retirement actually are forced into retirement to care for loved ones. So, we know 4 per cent are women and 2 per cent are men. So, we know there’s both sides to this sort of payment system that people have to navigate. How do they do it?
THWAITES: That’s a really good point you make there about, you know, again, it’s a pension, but it may also be other payments, such as carer payments. So, I would come back to say that, you know, I really recognise for older Australians, sometimes it can feel confusing and scary about how you do access these payments. I would say, as I said earlier, access that Financial Information Service early and get your information to Centrelink as soon as you can. So, book that face-to-face interview. They’ll be able to take you through what you’re eligible for. They will then ask you for information and you can start to go through that process. So, you can submit a claim for the age pension 13 weeks before you actually reach the age pension age. So that way you’re already setting yourself up for the future there. And when you put that claim in, put the documents to support it alongside it. Again, just making that process for you to get to that point, because it–
WILSON: Can take a bit of time, can’t it? And then they don’t back-pay. So, if you don’t get in ahead, you miss out.
THWAITES: That’s right. So, that 13 weeks is a really useful period to get that in order. Submit your claim, submit the documents that go with it. The other piece, I’d say around that is just keep an eye out for mail coming to you. We don’t get much mail these days. Right? I don’t get much mail. So, actually keep an eye out after you’ve submitted your claim, because if Services Australia want more information about the claim, they will often contact you by mail at that point to get more information. So, keep an eye on the process that way as well.
WILSON: So, while we’re talking about the process - are there any plans to simplify the process or provide more guidance or make it easier? Is there anything happening as we move into the retirement superfund process? Can we get it easier?
THWAITES: Look, I would like to think we can. I think that is something we need to constantly be working on. And I guess I would say more broadly that I’m also aware, for older Australians, often some of the barriers that they can feel in terms of these type of processes is that a lot of them are online. And so that’s why I’ve mentioned that you can book an appointment face to face, because I think that is really important for people. It is also that sort of familiarity with the online world and ability to work within it is something that our Government is also tackling through the Be Connected program, which provides people with a whole training module about how to get online and use government services. But not just use government services, also things like how to FaceTime your grandkids. And I’ve had some really positive feedback about that service, so people haven’t heard of that before. It is also worth looking out as well – often they’re run through local libraries or those sort of things. So, it’s a, you know, you can go to somewhere that you’re already familiar with and get some really practical information about how to do these things online. But yes, can we make it smoother and easier? I think that’s something we should always be working towards.
WILSON: I’m here with federal MP Kate Thwaites. She’s the Assistant Minister for Women, Social Security and Ageing, and we’re talking all things Age Pension. Now, here’s a doozy of a question. I get asked this one on radio all the time, so it’s fun to turn the tables on you. What is your view on when the Age Pension is going to end? And should we all fear, as younger generations coming towards the Age Pension, trying to plan for our retirements, that ending coming before we get there?
THWAITES: No, I don’t think we should. And I don’t think, certainly speaking as a member of the Government, there is no intention for the Age Pension to end. We recognise that people are going to get to their older years in all different kinds of circumstances. And so the Age Pension, certainly when we do our budget forecasts, it continues to be part of the mix that we budget for and forecast for into the future. You know, when we do our intergenerational reports, it is part of what we are still budgeting for and committed to into the future. What we want to do is make sure that we are getting all the levers right so that older Australians now, but also into the future, have as good as possible retirement and last period of their life. And so, yes, as I said earlier, that may mean the mix changes for people over the years, but we recognise, again, that won’t be the case for everyone. There will be people who will have worked less during their life, who will have had less income during their life. And Australia as a country is a country where we are stronger when we support everyone in our community to have a decent standard of living. And their pension, certainly for me as a Labor member, is one of those fundamentals of how we do that.
WILSON: Okay, let’s talk about concession cards because I know there’s a couple of these worth talking about. Obviously, the Pensioner Concession Card comes with the Age Pension qualification. Do you want to take us through the benefits people get from that card?
THWAITES: Yeah, the Pensioner Concession Card. And people who receive the pension would know this, but for others who don’t, it is really, it is a very useful card, particularly when it comes to healthcare costs and the cost of medicine. So, it does get you access to medicines at a cheaper rate and it changes for you the safety net for Medicare. So, it is a really important one, particularly when it comes to those health costs. There are also other benefits associated to them. But I would say one of the biggest ones is the health cost. If people are not eligible for that pensioner card when it comes to health costs, the other card that it is really worth me talking to you about today is the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. Now, since we came to government, we actually lifted the income threshold at which you can become eligible to receive the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. And so that means that there are a lot of Australians who previously weren’t eligible for that card who have become eligible. So, 32,000 additional cards have been granted since we made that change in November 2022.
WILSON: And those are CPI indexations, aren’t they? They would be coming through. As CPI comes through?
THWAITES: We made an initial boost beyond CPI to those. So, this isn’t just us. And this is why I think it’s important, because I think there are some people who maybe haven’t realised that’s happened–
WILSON: Oh, goody.
THWAITES: – and so haven’t tested their eligibility against a significantly higher rate. There is a CPI increase that is about to come into effect on that. And so that will mean that the singles income limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card is now $99,025 and the couple’s combined income limit is $158,440. So, those are significant levels. If you haven’t tested your eligibility for that card recently, really recommend you do so, because again, that gets you all those benefits on healthcare, cheaper medicine under the PBS safety net, more likelihood to get a bulk billed doctor visit and a bigger refund for your medical costs when you reach the Medicare safety net.
WILSON: And what people don’t realise about that card is that those caps are based on deemed income. Or if you have rental income, obviously it’s counted direct, but once you move into a passive phase of income, your income from financial assets is deemed. And that deeming calculation has been frozen for a few years. And that actually presents everybody with quite a significantly lower income against that deeming calculation, doesn’t it?
THWAITES: Those two together are significant. As I said, if you haven’t looked at that recently, I would really encourage people to test their eligibility again for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card for retirees.
WILSON: And you mentioned this earlier, for retirees working part time or taking on gig work, how does Centrelink manage the balance between income from work and pension payments?
THWAITES: It’s a great question. And as I said, I’m really aware that there are a lot of pensioners out there who do enjoy working a little bit. It might be seasonal work, they might be on the trip around Australia and they decide to do a little bit of work while they’re on the trip. They might be people who, I know people in the community I live in often do things like take up exam marking or supervision, or they might work for the AEC at election times that sort of thing – people are still working part time, you know, they’re doing a part retirement, part work piece or–
WILSON: – driving Ubers or doing all those other things. You know, gig work is really big in this community now.
THWAITES: Yeah, which is great. And, as I said, I think the benefits of that are not just to the older people themselves. Those benefits are for us as a community and, you know, our workplaces do benefit if we’ve got people from all different walks and stages of life in them. So, I think that’s really important.
WILSON: So, how do they maximise that income or navigate? Because there is an income threshold they can access, isn’t there? And there’s some ways of using that. It’s a little bit complex to understand how to work and get your layer of age pension and how much work you can do before you start to lose your age pension. But can you take us in?
THWAITES: We’re trying to make it as least complex as possible. Again, I will preface this by saying please get individual advice on your situation. Essentially, the work we did was to permanently raise the Work Bonus Income Bank, really to recognise that benefit of older Australians continuing to work. With the work bonus, the first $300 of fortnightly income from work is not counted under the pension income test. So, that doesn’t affect your pension at all. And then, because it’s an income bank, if you don’t use all or any of this fortnightly amount, you can bank up to $11,800, which you can then use in the future if you do take on that seasonal, short term or one-off work period.
WILSON: This is a tricky one for people to understand, but there is actually an ability to kind of hold over some money. If you don’t work for three months and you’ve got that Age Pension and you’ve already set yourself up with the Work Bonus Income Bank, you can really kind of save up the money you can earn and then pull it back through.
THWAITES: So, for a single aged pensioner, I’m going to call her Ann, just to keep her clear in my mind, with no other income, she could earn up to $512 a fortnight and she would still receive the full pension payment because of that enhanced work bonus, plus the pension income-free area of $212. Now then, if she started earning more and went beyond the income bank, she can also now suspend her pension for up to two years, rather than it being cancelled. And throughout that period as well, she would retain her Pensioner Concession Card. So, we are trying to make it easier, making it easier for people to transition, to make sure that they’re not as worried about what a bit of work might mean for their ability to access a pension and some of those benefits as well.
WILSON: I like the pause button. I think that’s really clever. And the ability to keep… because one of those benefits of the pension concession card is that you, you have discounted rates right back to nothing. You have registration in all states, I’m pretty sure. You know, there’s lots of local benefits that you get around the cost of living as well. And, you know, people rely on those.
THWAITES: They do, yeah. And, you know, they’re really important to people. And, you know, as I said, I certainly have heard in conversations I’ve had with people, yeah, I’d like to work, but I just really, I do feel worried that I will lose all these things that are important to me and that I’ve done budgets on. So I think it is important.
WILSON: I had an employee once who said to me, “I can only do 10 hours every fortnight because after that I need access to the healthcare. We absolutely cannot risk that healthcare access.” And so, you know, the beautiful but hard part is you then can’t have that person any more than that. But let’s break down those numbers again, just in case anybody was wondering what they were. $300 a fortnight that you get as the Work Bonus Income Bank, a bulk amount that is, that you can get and still access your pension. And there’s $212 at the moment. That is your income-free area on the pension are the amounts that we add together, and you can add those two together to take a larger income. And that’s how people manage to layer income. They get the Age Pension, they get a bit of work, and they take a small income layer from their superannuation to really bring together the benefits of layering their income as they move through this phase of life.
THWAITES: And as I said, there’s other benefits that come from work as well that are about being connected, feeling part of community, keeping your brain active in a certain way. We know those are also important health benefits of people and lifestyle benefits.
WILSON: Yeah, 78 per cent of our community says they want to work after retirement in some form, or they think they might want to work. So, I mean, it’s pretty interesting to see the world is changing. The world is changing away from midlife, being old, it’s just not old anymore. We’re still able to participate in such a full and able way, which is fantastic.
THWAITES: And making that something that people want to do, something that people feel able to do and still feel supported.
WILSON: I’m here with federal MP Kate Thwaites. She’s the Assistant Minister for Women, Social Security and Ageing. A lot of people would be willing to do more work. Do you think the government might like to consider raising the limits to allow people to do more work?
THWAITES: Look, I think we have recently made this change. I’d like to look at how that’s working. I’d like to make sure people are aware of it as it is. Because, again, I think there’s probably some work for us to do to make sure that people understand that this change has been made. And I think once we’ve seen how that’s going, what the uptake’s like, that’ll give us a better sense of do we need to raise it further and look at other measures as well to support people to be able to work and get the pension.
WILSON: All right. I know a lot of people would like to see that one moved. Now let’s talk about housing for a minute. I met a woman, a full pensioner, at a seniors’ event in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago that I went to, and she pulled me up afterwards and explained her story. And she was very different to the other people in the room who were coming to learn about downsizing. This lady had already been forced into downsizing, so she had had to downsize from her family home. When her husband died, they went through a bankruptcy in Covid. All very awful situations. And so she’s a single 70-year-old woman living in a rental property in outer Melbourne. She can only afford to pay about $370 in rent, which is about where the rent thresholds, rent assistance thresholds, can help her. But she had to line up every weekend for a year. The last time her rental property fell away and landlords kept rejecting her every single time. Even though she put in the form she gets a full Age Pension. She got a reliable income source with that. And they just look at her and judge her on that Age Pension and she can’t find a place to live. And I just, I looked at this lady and my heart just bled. I don’t know what we can do to help these people. This woman is 70. And every time a landlord then says no, she has to find another place to live. She lives in terror of this. What can the government do to help this?
THWAITES: Yeah, I think that is a terrible situation and we do know, obviously, that rents have been increasing across the country and that’s why we’ve increased Commonwealth Rent Assistance. And as I said a few times in our conversation, I really recognise that, particularly for older women, if they don’t own their own house, they are more likely to be in an insecure position, particularly with rents high at the moment, where they feel quite worried about the future and where perhaps it is really difficult for them to find a rental. So, one of the things we are doing right now, through the Housing Australia Future Fund – in fact, the Housing Minister’s made announcements about this, about work getting underway – is we are, as a federal government, investing in more social and affordable housing, and that includes a dedicated part for women and children fleeing domestic violence and also for older women at risk of homelessness. So, we are putting more money into building more houses specifically for this group of people because we do really recognise there’s a need there. And I’ve already had some discussions with older women across the country, you know, about their concerns. I think sometimes older women feel a sense of shame around this, which I really do not want them to feel.
WILSON: This lady came up and wanted me to understand her situation and just so that we could give it more of a voice.
THWAITES: Yeah. And that’s fantastic because it deserves a voice. And certainly, for me, it’s something that I am really aware of. It is something that I will continue to work through the government on what supports we put in place and also work with the community. I know as well that there are some innovative housing models that are looking at how they support older women out there. So, I want to explore that more as well.
WILSON: I mean, what is it? 25 per cent of our population are struggling to get– keep that rental market churning over for them in older parts of Australia. So, we’ve got to find some way that they don’t get rejected on judgement.
THWAITES: Absolutely, yes. And I’ve heard loud and clear from older Australians that age discrimination is a real thing for them and it just shouldn’t be.
WILSON: That’s pension judgement – that it’s not a good source of income. Well, it’s a bloody good source of income.
THWAITES: Exactly. It is regular. It is there. You will continue to [be there], totally agree. All of those pieces around how we view older people, their contribution and how we support them, again, one of the things I think is important for me, having taken up this new role, is to really keep having that conversation about the value of older people and the fact that they should not be discriminated against. These are people who, you know, for all of their lives have made significant decisions about themselves. They know what financially they’re able to do and what they’re not able to do. So, you know, supporting them to do that free of discrimination is important.
WILSON: And women live longer. So, we’ve got to solve this problem, right?
THWAITES: Absolutely.
WILSON: We know the numbers are there. They’re going to keep living longer. Nothing’s going to change that, I don’t think, unless we get a plague that takes out women all of a sudden. So, we’ve actually got a job to do to fix the way we house people in more difficult financial circumstances. But we also have a generation that’s spanning all the way down to 50 that don’t own their own homes at this point of life because of divorce, because of working in, I guess, more socially humble careers, ones that play an important role in our caring society that we have to represent. And so we’ve got not just older Australians to help give a hand up to. We’ve actually got to stop this becoming a perpetual problem.
THWAITES: Absolutely. And one of the things I’m pleased about is, for women who do currently work in those areas, they are areas that our government has targeted for pay rises. So, aged care and early educators, we are supporting pay rises in both of those industries. Really going to that point around the fact that historically these are areas that are dominated by women, but they have been underpaid. So, that is really important. And, you know, that will make a difference for generations to come. But yes, for people who have worked in those professions all their life and now are towards the end of their working life, we’ve got to look at other ways to support them. As I said, part of that is building more affordable houses, particularly or specifically for this group of older women, and also working with the community about what that looks like more broadly.
WILSON: And my last topic for you today is this thing that I’ve taken on as a bit of a personal mission, and that’s retirement education. We know there’s super funds out there that are managing the money. We know the government manages a portion of the money that people can earn to, but people don’t know how to navigate this phase of life and how it’s changed. And, you know, the old assumptions of retirement being this drop dead, kind of stop your life, it’s-all-going-to-end-from-here view. And then you gradually eke your way out of society. It doesn’t work like that anymore. So, I’ve made it a bit of a personal mission on how we can navigate this beyond financial advice. There’s financial advice and then there’s how to do it. But who do you think should be responsible for educating people in pre-retirement as they approach this phase? Because it’s a national problem. We’ve got 5 million people in retirement right now and another 5 million people headed for retirement in the next five or ten years.
THWAITES: I think that’s a really important question. And, as you said, that a lot of Australians do enter this phase of life without having done a lot of thinking about it, other than an assumption of, “oh, one day I’ll stop working, I’ll have a few years and then it’ll all be done”, or perhaps they’re finishing thinking, “I don’t really know if I’m going to be secure, I don’t know what it’s going to look like to lead a good older life”. I don’t think there is one point of responsibility for that. I think our superannuation funds are important and increasingly important that, yes, the fact that super is compulsory means, in a way, it is a bit set-and-forget, but actually at some point engaging with your superannuation fund and engaging with what that looks like for you into retirement. As I said, that Financial Information Service, it does come from Services Australia and from the Government for that planning piece there as well. And then again, as a community, I think that broader piece around what do we want it to look like for Australians to age well? And that is financial, but it is also community and social. We all benefit from older Australians having a good life into their later years. Our communities are stronger when we can realise people’s potential, when we can draw on their experiences, when they feel cared for and supported. So, again, as a Government, we are really aware of that and we are trying to find ways that we have that conversation in our communities and across the way that government works as well. That’s not just in these areas of financial support, but also in health, in how we’re setting up our communities, we are doing the work to make this a country where everyone can have a good retirement and older age.
WILSON: My goal is that somebody provides detailed and informative education for everybody. Kate Thwaites, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I really loved having you along and we’re going to watch you as you get your feet under the desk here, and look forward to seeing the actions you put in place.
THWAITES: Thank you so much for having me, and thanks for all you’re doing to help older Australians understand what a good retirement looks like.
WILSON: Thank you for listening to Prime Time.