Indigenous calls to reduce age pension discrimination

Uncle Dennis, a Queensland-born Wakka Wakka man who has requested that his surname be withheld, unsuccessfully brought a case before the federal Court last year, seeking fair and equal access to the age pension for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

He had called for access to his aged pension at 64, instead of at 67, arguing this was in-line with the significant disparity in life-expectancy for Indigenous people compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts.

The case, which was brought with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) and the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC), argued the failure of the Commonwealth to account for differences in life expectancy for First Nations people receiving the aged pension constituted a breach of Section 10 of the Racial Discrimination Act.