Santa suffers under new pension rule
An 80-year-old Melbourne-based Father Christmas is downcast because he has been penalised in his pension payments for earning extra money for jolly employment during the sustained end of year Christmas period.
Ted Carver, called the Singing Santa for his liking for breaking into carols for children while working at Myer, had had his pension cut back because the Federal Government has directed Centrelink to assess pensioner earnings through a fortnightly instead of an annual check.
Mr Carver has an annual income of $4,000 which is well below the allowed threshold of $6,448. But the new limit of $250 a fortnight before the pension is reduced has now left him much worse off.
The Minister for Families, Jenny Macklin, responding to Mr Carver, said that only 3% of age pensioners earned income from employment and claimed a single pensioner earning $4,000 was $552 better off over the year “when the pension rate increases are taken into account”.
But Santa Ted Carver has rejected this argument. He told The Age newspaper that the Federal Government was using the rate increase given to all pensioners to hide the fact that through wearing his red Christmas suit once a year he is losing out under the system.
