Turnbull government ministers are livid over a union robo-calling campaign targeting pensioners and their families about changes to the age pension, labelling it dishonest, unnecessary and "disgraceful".
On Wednesday, Fairfax Media revealed the Australian Council of Trade Unions had begun robo-calling mobiles and homes encouraging people to contact Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to protest changes to the pension assets test starting on January 1.
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Robo-call alert
The ACTU is behind the latest round of robo-calls, these ones featuring Leanne who urges people to call the PM about his plans to cut her father's pension.
"The government can't get away with this. It's un-Australian," says Leanne, who identifies herself as the daughter of a pensioner. "I'm going to call talkback radio and Malcolm Turnbull to tell him to get his hands off our parents' pension."
The voicemail message did not have an authorisation and Leanne did not say she was representing the ACTU. An angry social services minister, Christian Porter, said the campaign was "absolutely disgraceful, full stop".
The message was "specifically designed to scare the hell out of pensioners - unnecessarily, dishonestly and quite shamefully", Mr Porter told 2GB radio.
"It is one of the lowest acts I can recall hearing about or seeing in Australian politics. I mean really, it is just the last gasp," he said. "This is the union movement engaging in the coward's punch of Australian politics."
Ministers compared the robo-call to Labor's so-called Mediscare campaign during the federal election, in which a text message purporting to be from "Medicare" was sent to thousands of mobiles warning the Turnbull government planned to privatise Medicare.
"This is a carbon copy of what happened with the Mediscare campaign during the election. It's designed to scare people, particularly older people," Immigration Minister Peter Dutton told 2GB."
"People are angry with this propaganda and the lies that the Labor Party's telling. It's inconceivable that this ad would have gone out without [Opposition Leader] Bill Shorten's approval."
Mr Shorten said the calls had not come from the Labor Party but defended the campaign. He said the Turnbull government was making 330,000 pensioners worse off and many had only recently discovered they will be affected courtesy of letters from Centrelink.
"How do you make a government who's not very good at listening listen?" he said on 3AW radio. "Politics is about people power and it's about individuals being heard."
The changes to the asset test will tighten eligibility for many wealthy pensioners, but will also put a small amount of extra pay in the pockets of those reliant on the pension. Labor opposed the measure last year but now says it will keep the $2.4 billion in savings.
Human Services Minister Alan Tudge called on Mr Shorten to distance himself from the "disgraceful union campaign". He told ABC Radio National the changes would "rebalance the system" and only those pensioners with high assets would be "negatively affected".
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver told Fairfax Media on Wednesday he made no apologies for using "any means" necessary to fight back against changes that would harm retirees who had worked hard and already planned their retirement.
Last week a parliamentary inquiry recommended text messages and robo-calls be subject to political communication rules that require an authorisation to be included in the ad. The inquiry was launched in response to Labor's so-called Mediscare campaign tactics.
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