Federal Budget 2014: John Howard backs age pension change, budget

FORMER prime minister John Howard has given his verdict on the Federal Budget, saying it would make us “lean without being mean”.

FORMER Prime Minister John Howard has showered the budget with praise.

Mr Howard said he “strongly supported” the age pension age being raised to 70-years-old as it “had to be done” given the ageing population.

He labelled Australia’s welfare system as “lean without being mean.”

“Australia’s welfare system, for all the criticism levelled at it, is in fact lean without being mean and all the international comparisons suggest we deliver, as a nation, better benefits for fewer dollars.”

He said tough budget choices had to be made “upfront” by governments.

“I thought (the budget) got more or less the right balance between expenditure and taxation measures,” Mr Howard said.

The former Prime Minister defended his decision 13 years ago to scrap the fuel excise which was reintroduced by the Abbott government last night.

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“Context is everything. It was gotten rid of at the time when there was little cynicism in the community about whether we had generally reduced excise by a sufficient amount to compensate for the introduction of a goods and services tax on fuel. As we all know, Australians love their motor cars and they’re very sensitive to fuel prices but I think the right balance was achieved,” Mr Howard said.

“I would be the last person in the world to criticise a government that has to take the sort of measures that the government took last night. I think there are elements in this budget that are going to represent a tough sell.”

He said medical copayments weren’t an attack on Medicare as Labor had suggested.

He didn’t openly criticise the scrapping of Family Tax Benefits but said they are not welfare payments but “tax breaks for the cost of having children.”

“I have the quaint, old fashion view ... that a couple on $120,000 a year with two children, in my view, should not have to pay the same tax as a couple on $120,000 with no children.”

He also praised the increases to the defence budget.

Originally published as Federal Budget 2014: John Howard backs age pension change, budget