Member

The position of steelworkers, as of coal miners, has to be given some special attention. We are talking about workers who have given the best years of their working lives to those strategic industries. It is heavy and arduous work, often in unhealthy working environments—that takes its toll. While we who have worked in representative politics for most of our lives can continue to work in our chosen profession well beyond 65, as many here are doing today, that just is not practical for workers in industries such as coal and steel. By their retiring age they have earned their pensions and they deserve the full value of those pensions without any loss of the sort we are describing. When it is in part taken away from them, for reasons well outside their control, they have every right to hope and expect that a Government of a civilised society can take steps to safeguard their financial position.