Hello dear Members!

I hope you're all well

As most of you know, the Seniors Discount Club is a growing online community for all Australians over the age of 60. We have been around for three years now and feel incredibly lucky to say we now have over 320,000 members!

With our online community growing, and with each and every one of you sharing some of your day-to-day struggles, we have decided to launch a few petitions. We believe with the number of members we have, there is potential for us, as a community, to hopefully inspire some change. We have just four petitions live at the moment, and we'd be more than happy to launch some more if there are any more topics you as a community feel passionate about. If you're interested in seeing the petitions we have live currently, you can see them below:

• Stop the transition to all self-serve checkouts: We think this one speaks for itself! For many of our members, their local supermarkets are quickly transitioning to fully self-served. We believe this is not only causing job losses, but makes the weekly shopping so much more challenging for Australians over 60... Not to mention, how fiddly and frustrating they can be to use! We are petitioning to keep traditional checkouts in our stores.
• Strengthen Aged Care Support, Funding, and Transparency: Sadly, I think I speak on behalf of most of our members when I say the current state of aged care in Australia is extremely concerning. We are petitioning to improve the quality of aged care provided to Australian seniors in facilities across the nation. At the end of the day, our population is ageing and if we continue to turn a blind eye to aged care support, Australians are in for a frightening future.
• Increase the Australian Aged Pension for a Better, Fairer Future: We hear every single day Australian news outlets discuss how Aussies are struggling with the current cost-of-living... But how about our pensioners trying to put food on their table, keep their lights and heating on, and pay for their medicine? The cost-of-living crisis is hitting Australian pensioners the hardest, and there is not enough being done about it.
• Protect the Right to Use Cash and Ensure Financial Inclusivity: Where do I begin?! Without cash, so many Australians suffer. Not every Australian has access to digital payment methods and banking and removing cash, and bank branches is making anything to do with money so much more challenging for Australian seniors. Cash should be kept alive for all Australians.

We know these four topics are just scraping the surface so if there is anything else you'd like us to put a petition together for, please let us know in the comments below.

As with all petitions, the more signatures we get on these, the louder we become! So please share this with all of your family and friends, whether they are a member of the Seniors Discount Club or not! The number of supporters in the top right corner of each petition will be manually updated by our team as often as we can, but our goal is to get 100,000 signatures on every petition!

I cannot thank you all enough for your ongoing support of us and our community. We appreciate each and every one of you!

Sign our petitions! Image source: Shutterstock.

Have a great day!
Maddie

 

[Glenys R]

I am still waiting for someone to let me know what one does at the check out, standing with a full trolly, and the "system" has gone to God and one cannot pay with the fantastic plastic. If one doesn't carry enough cash for the shopping, usually about $200 for me, what happens next? with another 5 people waiting behind me!

 

[Maureen1253]

Where do we sign this petition, I use only cash as I don't trust cards but if they take that away from me I will have to find an alternative and I don't want to deal with cards etc.

 

[Pat Wilson]

How do I sign the petition?

 

[Photoj23]

We need to keep cash as a backup. Why, well when there is a power outage at the stores, we use cash, it's a no brainer. The elderly is fining to technology hard enough without them being refused or turned away because they only know how to or are comfortable in using cash.
On the supermarket usesing self sale services, is fine for those wanting to get in quickly if they only have a few items. However it doesn't save the store anymore money but puts more stress on all the rest of the shoppers with a basket of food items, waiting in a line as there is only two tills available.
I personally like to be met and greeted by a person at the till as it can make your shopping experience a lighter feeling rather than a stressful job.
Cheers Lynette Wells

 

[Pat Wilson]

That helped me?

 

[Irenetf23]

Why do we have to put in so much of our details to sign a petition. I won't sign a petition when it asks for all my details.

 

[Luckyus]

I fail to see the need to provide your age in petitions?

 

[Slicka]

This is a no brainer, KEEP THE CASH SOCIETY, not all our senior citizens are credit card holders.

 

[Luckyus]

I have although I srongly disagree in having to give your age, which is irelevant.

 

[Rissie]

Signed them all

 

[jaylynne]

I could not agree more. I am a pensioner and really struggling with the cost of living, high power bills, grocery bills, medications etc. All of this is difficult enough but if like me a pensioner has to pay rent, then the difficulties are even more of a problem. I pay $960 a fortnight on rent. In the rental situation I am grateful to have somewhere to live. It is very sad when we hear all the measures being taken for other members of society but pensioners seem to be always overlooked.

 

[Buttonbox]

My 82 year old friend has been told she can’t have an assessment or Ot as there is no money to do it she is struggling on her own. How great is our system NOT

 

[Rob44]

Congratulations SDC on this initiative. Too many people are content to have a whinge in the comments section when, as it so frequently does, one of these issues is highlighted. There has always been strength in numbers and something like this has much more chance of bringing about change than any individual grumbling. I will also add my name to the petitions listed and would urge all subscribers to do likewise. Good move guys

Are there enough of us still left alive to make these 4 petitions an election issue at State and Federal levels? Australia's politicians need a boot up their collective arses. The LNP will do squat as a matter of policy and the ALP is frightened of its own shadow and will do squat.

 

[Jules57]

Agree with all four, two others that bug me are the dates in products use by and best before. Even with glasses on some are incredibly hard to find. Also gluten free is often difficult to locate.

 

[bevg46]

I have signed all 4 of the petitions as l feel quite strongly about each subject. Well done SDC.

 

[Rissie]

Agree with all four, two others that bug me are the dates in products use by and best before. Even with glasses on some are incredibly hard to find. Also gluten free is often difficult to locate.

I recon they do that on purpose! Also the country of origin sometimes printed In The most obscure area

 

[Slicka]

I agree wholeheartedly with all these questions and add my no voice to all.Thank you.

 

[Rosa2554]

Those four as petitions will do for a start. Good job - thank you.

 

[Drew62]

I just signed all 4 great work guys

 

[Babybird]

Donto like using autochek out am against it like someone to serve me