Young skips pension bill debate

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says he will not at­tend to­day's de­bate on the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, call­ing it un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and per­son­al­ly tar­get­ed.

To­day the Low­er House will meet to de­bate the bill, which seeks to tight­en the rules around pen­sion el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for for­mer prime min­is­ters. Un­der the ex­ist­ing law, any­one who has ever held the post qual­i­fies for a pen­sion, re­gard­less of how long they served. The new leg­is­la­tion in­tro­duces a min­i­mum one-year re­quire­ment and a tiered pen­sion struc­ture, with pay­outs rang­ing from one-third to full salary af­ter four years in of­fice.

If passed, the changes will ap­ply retroac­tive­ly from March 10 this year. Be­cause it af­fects con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, the bill re­quires a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty.

Young, who served briefly as prime min­is­ter be­fore the April gen­er­al elec­tion, de­scribed the bill as “ad hominem” and said its retroac­tive clause was a clear abuse of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“As a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple, I should not par­tic­i­pate in or be present for the par­lia­men­tary de­bate of this bill,” he said.

He added he would con­tin­ue to serve the coun­try “with­out fear or favour, mal­ice or ill will.”