For the sake of pensioners, Malcolm Turnbull needs to ditch billions of dollars’ worth of unfair zombie cuts in his make-or-break Budget in less than three weeks’ time.

Around 300 seniors and pensioners came together in Kingsford Smith today to discuss concerns and issues that matter to older Australians.

That includes the unfair zombie cuts, amounting to $2 billion over four years, which Turnbull and his Liberals are intent on inflicting upon pensioners and vulnerable Australians in their Budget.

Half of that figure comes from the Liberals’ plan to axe the Energy Supplement to two million Australians – including 400,000 age pensioners.

Axing the Energy Supplement for new pensioners would mean a cut of $14.10 per fortnight for single pensioners or $365 a year.

The $1 billion hole left in the Budget due to the Liberals’ failure to get the measure passed is still being booked as a saving, despite missing the start date and not even proposing a new one.

Mr Turnbull has 19 days to do the right thing by pensioners in the Budget and ditch his plan to axe the Energy Supplement.

While he’s at it, he can also ditch the rest of the billions of dollars in unfair cuts he’s counting as Budget savings which have either been rejected by Parliament, are unlikely to pass, or have never even been introduced at all.

They include:

• Taking away the pension supplement from pensioners who go overseas for more than six weeks;
• Making migrants wait up to 15 years before they can access the Age Pension, and;
• Extending the liquid assets waiting period from 13 weeks to six months – making it harder for people that lose their job to access income support.

And that’s on top of the Liberals’ plan to increase the pension age to 70 – meaning Australia would have an older pension age than the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

It’s been more than 1,400 days since Joe Hockey first announced the measure in his horror 2014 Budget.

But that hasn’t stopped the Liberals booking it as a $3.6 billion save to the Budget bottom line over the medium term, despite it not being introduced in this term of the Parliament. 

Turnbull is giving a $65 billion tax handout to the top end of town while trying to cut the Energy Supplement from pensioners and increasing the pension age to 70 – how is that fair?

As long as Turnbull clings to these fake savings his Budget is nothing more than a fiscal fairy tale that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.