Kaye Fallick

Kaye is a retirement commentator and coach, with 25 years’ experience writing about retirement income. She has authored two books on life stage changes – Get a New Life and What Next? – and enjoys regular radio and podcast appearances. Her favourite mission is to offer plain English explanations of complex rules so that all retirees can benefit. She is based in Melbourne but enjoys escaping to Italy whenever possible.
Your rights and Centrelink: What do you need to know?

Your rights and Centrelink: What do you need to know?

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All successful relationships rely on give and take. It’s necessary in marriage, business and with any financial service relationships. And, with 70% of older Australians on an Age Pension. You would also expect it to work well with Centrelink, the agency that manages Age Pension entitlements for about 70% of retirees.

Sure, you think. But theory is a wonderful thing and reality can be different.

The Robodebt debacle occurred between 2015 and 2019 when around half a million incorrect ‘debts’ to Centrelink were pursued using a method called ‘income averaging’. According to the subsequent royal commission into this method of questionable debt recovery, the system was ‘unlawful, cruel and a failure of public service accountability’. This failure has severely damaged Centrelink’s reputation. It has also eroded the trust that many older Australians had in in the belief they would get a ‘fair go’ in their dealings with this government agency. 

Robodebt has been back in the news in recent weeks as the book written about this episode, Mean Streak by Rick Morton, has just won the Prime Minister’s Literary award for non-fiction. And a two-part documentary on how this punitive program was rolled out, The People vs Robodebt, is screening on SBS (and available to watch on SBS on Demand).

Given the level of distress and concern caused by this chapter in Australian social benefits, we thought it timely to revisit the topic of your rights and Centrelink.

What are your rights? 

What can you do

What can Centrelink do

We asked these questions of Steven Sadler who heads up the Retirement Essentials Customer Services Team. No one knows this detail like Guru Steven, so here is an edited overview of his wisdom.

What’s your retirement context?

What’s your retirement context?

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Most of us like to benchmark ourselves; our income, house prices, super savings or even how many steps a day we walk. It’s a very human characteristic, but also a useful one. Why? Because knowing our place in the overall scheme of things can often help us better understand ways to improve our situation. To use a health analogy, knowing the recommended weight and BMI for our age is one way of gauging our overall health – and a trigger to spur us on to better health habits.

It’s no different with retirement and retirement income. Knowing our own ranking in the general Australian retirement landscape is very helpful information. Most of the time it’s also an affirmation of our particular situation – knowing we are ‘with the pack’ helps in some immeasurable way.

One very useful retirement benchmark is the HILDA Report. Or, to give it its full named, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia report (currently celebrating its 20th edition). It’s an annual but every four years it reports of the retirement ‘state of the nation’. The top level numbers tell us a lot about retirement, including:

The age at which Australians are now retiring,

the reason most people leave work,

the gap between men and women’s super balances, and

homeownership fluctuations.

Looking at each of these four trends will help you better understand your own place in the scheme of things. (The following information was drawn from the full HILDA report as well as a summary first published in The Conversation.

1. Later retirements – older workers

One in 3 Australians in their late 60s are still working. This is a major change:

In 2003, about 70% of women and almost half of men aged 60–64 had fully retired from the workforce. 

In 2023,  those numbers have fallen to 41% and 27% respectively. 

For people aged 65–69, retirement rates have also dropped – from 86% to 66% among women, and from 73% to 61% among men.

In summary, the median age at retirement has moved from 59 (2003) to 64 (2023) from women and 60 (2003) to 65 (2023) for men.

2. Why do people retire?

According to HILDA, health problems remain the most common reason Australians give for retiring. In 2023, 29% of recent retirees  said they left work because of their own or a loved one’s health. That number is down from 39% in 2003 (reflecting longer life expectancy and better health outcomes) but health issues remain the most cited reason for retirement.

Job-related factors – such as redundancy or pressure from an employer – are another major factor cited by recent retirees (27%). 

And financial reasons, including becoming eligible for the Age Pension, have also become more common. The share of recent retirees citing financial reasons as their main motivation has risen from 13% in 2003 to 21% in 2023.

Age Pension increases 20 September 2025

Age Pension increases 20 September 2025

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The twice-yearly Age Pension indexation has now been announced with changes due to start on 20 September 2025. The tables below show the changes which affect retirees, as confirmed by the Department of Social Security (DSS) on 19 August. 

The new payment rates from 20 September 2025 affect recipients of the Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, and Carer Payments. Singles can expect a total increase of $29.70 a fortnight and couples can expect a (combined) total increase of $44.80 a fortnight.