Queensland election 2024 priorities
National Seniors this week launched its election priorities with a focus on housing, energy, and cost of living. Here's everything you should know.
While many see the upcoming state election as a foregone conclusion after voters appear unwilling to extend 12 years of Labor government, it is still vital that issues facing older Queenslanders are front and centre on 26 October.
With one-third of voters aged 60 or over, older people will have a huge impact on the outcome of the election.
National Seniors has been active this year in the lead up to the election, using our regular state budget submission as a centrepiece for meetings with candidates from both sides of politics.
On the Labor side, we have met with Minister for Transport, Bart Mellish, and the senior policy advisor and chief of staff to Energy Minister, Mick de Brenni.
On the Opposition side, we met with Shadow Treasurer, David Janetski, Shadow Minister for Transport, Steve Minnikin, and Shadow Minister for Seniors, John Paul Langbroek.
Following this, we have adapted our state budget submission into a set of election priorities, in consultation with our Queensland Policy Advisory Group led by David Warner.
While there are many things we could be asking for, we have focused our attention on housing, cost of living, and energy as three key areas of concern.
We know that housing is a huge concern for all people and are seeking to get all parties to focus on ideas that help the housing needs of older people as one priority.
In the housing area we are calling for the following three policies:
Provide a one-off seniors’ stamp duty concession to promote downsizing.
Construct more seniors-friendly housing that serves the needs of older people.
Create nationally consistent and strengthened legislation to protect older people from predatory pricing practices in retirement villages.
The cost of living is also important, with many of our members feeling the pinch. As such, we have identified three practical policies to ease pressure on household budgets for older Queenslanders. These are:
Increase the pensioner water subsidy to $150 and extend eligibility for the scheme to people in regional areas and low-income self-funded retirees.
Continue 50-cent public transport fares and improve the frequency of public transport services.
Introduce a targeted pensioner concession card to deliver additional support to those most in need.
Energy rounds out our top three areas of concern. While rebates have been welcomed, ongoing relief from energy costs and protections from bill shock are sorely needed.
Here are the three key energy policies we want candidates to support:
Oppose the use of demand tariffs by energy retailers, and ensure flat tariffs remain available to customers installing a smart meter and cost-reflective tariffs are not forced onto customers with smart meters.
Remove the cost of the Solar Bonus Scheme from network charges until the scheme expires in 2028.
Give Solar Bonus Scheme participants the option to install a battery with an appropriate feed-in tariff.
Each of these policies has been carefully calibrated to provide responsible support to older Queenslanders.
You can read more about these policies in our 2024 Queensland Election document.
