Each year, COTA Australia provides a pre-budget submission to Treasury, making recommendations about measures that should be included in the next federal budget to better support older people.
COTA Australia’s 2020–2021 pre-budget submission was submitted to Treasury back in January. Typically, the budget is handed down in May, so in normal circumstances, this would have given the government plenty of time to consider COTA Australia’s recommendations. But this year, COVID-19 happened. As a result, the 2020–2021 budget was delayed, and is now due to be handed down on 6 October.
The upshot is that COTA Australia had time to make further recommendations about what the budget needs to include to better support older people in the context of COVID-19. These recommendations are contained in a Supplementary Pre-Budget Submission.
COTA Australia is calling on the Australian Government to prioritise the following areas in the next federal budget:
- pensions and income support
- future retirement income policy
- aged care reform
- employment of older Australians
- housing
- a whole-of-government approach to an ageing Australia.
If you have any questions about the matters raised in either of COTA Australia’s pre-budget submissions, please contact COTA Australia directly on (02) 6154 9740 or send an email to cota@cota.org.au.