WAR veteran Bob Jones couldn't believe his luck when told his pension was being increased - until he realised it was going up by 1c a fortnight.

Mr Jones, 71, received a letter on Tuesday from the Department of Veterans Affairs telling him of the increase.

But any excitement at an unexpected windfall was short-lived when he found his new fortnightly payment was $653.65 - an increase of 1c.

"I would have been better off getting nothing at all," he told The Cairns Post from his Innisfail home yesterday.

"The cost of the paper and mail out would be much more than the increase to my bank account.

"I've told the kids not to go fighting over the increase to their inheritance."

The former air force sergeant, who was part of the evacuation of Saigon that signalled the end of the Vietnam War, had hoped to use the extra money to help his sick daughter.

So he called the department to double-check the amount and was told the increase was part of a routine "deeming re-adjustment" sent to every pensioner in Australia.

"I can't see the sense of it," he said.

"Initially I thought OK; fair enough they do increase the rate from time to time but then I saw the figure."

Mr Jones, who has lived at Innisfail for 30 years after retiring from the air force in 1975, said the pay rise was a waste of time and taxpayer's money.

"How many of these letters would have gone out?" Mr Jones said. "Obviously the letter is computer generated but it would have been much simpler to just put the new amount in my account and be done with it."

Yvonne Zardini from the Pensioners and Superannuants League Queensland said she was disgusted by the Government's bureaucracy.

The Department of Veterans Affairs had not returned calls from The Cairns Post last night.

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