Examples of willful and scandalous treatment of Australia based British pensioners

1.MA's elderly "Mum" of 99 years, struggles in her outer Sydney retirement village home to make ends meet and with some dignity provide herself with those few small things she would like to afford, for example a few clothes, the phone bills and some small presents for her great grandchildren. However "Mum", a British pensioner since 1966 chose to live in Australia to which she emigrated to be near her only daughter, herself now a pensioner. "Mum" is given a full British pension of £4.50/week instead of £82.05. This has been the same since she arrived here in 1968. Although because of Australian generosity some of the deficiency is made up by the Australian government out of Australian taxpayers' funds. This feisty lady has been deprived of, in excess of £60,000 since her arrival. Some consolation for the fact her husband fought in the North Africa campaign and in Italy leaving her at home in South London with 2 small children to face the Nazi bombs and later to struggle as we all did with the shortages inflicted upon us after the war. What an uncaring, ungrateful and parsimonious way to treat your elderly folk, Tony Blair!
Since this paper was prepared this lady passed away in July 2005.

2. WH, is in his mid 90's, he is now nearly blind and wishes to rest in peace in Queensland with his thoughts of the better Britain he left to join his young family when he retired. However like others of his generation from the UK and living in Australia, he feels abandoned on account of his UK pension, frozen since he arrived in Australia; it provides him with only £6.50/week. It should be at least £82.05. Like MA's Mum, the generosity of the Australian government has made sure he has not been too disadvantaged over the years, but he has still been denied about £58000 since his arrival. Why should the Australian taxpayer fund what should by rights be a British pension issue. This is a despicable way to treat your elderly people Tony Blair even if they have chosen to live in some overseas country like Australia, removing the burden from the British taxpayer and your creaking NH system to fund the medical costs of such elderly folk. If he had chosen to live in the USA or Germany his pension would have been regularly inflation adjusted.
This elderly gentleman has recently passed away, he has featured in many stories in the recent past

3. FW lived in country NSW until a few months ago. He passed away a few months ago in his eighties. To his credit FW was one of your WW2 heroes, a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, shooting down the Nazi invaders. Later he was trusted to the important role of taxiing Winston Churchill around the world as the war was coming to an end. In 1952 FW was flying with the King's Flight. When King George VI died FW was one of the flight crew entrusted with flying the new Queen Elizabeth II back to London from her travels in Kenya, some responsibility. Moreover FW was later involved in training Empire pilots when he was engaged in establishing a pilots school in what was then Rhodesia. FW ended his days in Australia where he chose to retire, but in spite of his heady deeds in his earlier years, like other British expats retiring in Australia, his pension has been frozen from the day he commenced receiving it. So much so that FW calculated he had been deprived of over £20000 since his retirement. Is that the way to reward a brave man who gave his all when the call to fight for Britain was asked of him? What a reward he received in his final days for past heroism from today's pathetic politicians?
Frank unfortunately passed away on May 31 2005

JET 31/7/05

"There's no justification for paying some [UK pensioners] less than others". Lord Carswell 5/ 2005

Jim Tilley

Honourary Chairman BPiA       Amended -8/11/2005