Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013. This legislation contains a large number of provisions in areas as diverse as gambling reform, income management in Cape York and changes to our social security system. It is a complex bill and one that I think is best dealt with measure by measure, so I will go through each of them.

The first measure in the bill relates to gambling reform. It is the case that problem gambling is a very real and very serious issue in this country. For too many Australians, gambling can be incredibly destructive. It affects around five million Australians, including friends, family and employers of people with a gambling problem. The social cost of problem gambling in this country is estimated to be around $5 billion, and that social cost comes in addition to the almost $19 billion which is lost annually by gamblers around Australia—and those figures are quite old now, being from 2008-09, and I am sure would be higher now.

This is a huge financial burden for Australian families. As the Productivity Commission said in its 2010 report:

The significant social costs associated with problem gambling mean that even policy measures with modest efficacy will often be worthwhile.

In 2012, Labor introduced measures to help protect people whose problem gambling is hurting them and their loved ones. These were meaningful reforms aimed at tackling problem gambling. The bill before us removes all of the measures contained within the National Gambling Reform Act that would help problem gamblers. Despite this, Labor continue to support meaningful measures to tackle problem gambling in our communities, so as a party we will need to revisit this issue and determine the best way forward, together with stakeholders across the community, and that is what we intend to do.

The legislation also extends income management in Cape York. The Labor Party have always been strong supporters of the Cape York welfare reform trials. After coming to government in 2007, we committed more than $100 million towards the trials, including $24½ million in this year's budget. We have always been strong advocates for the work being done in Cape York, and I am particularly proud of our government's support for that work.

In 2012, a landmark evaluation of the Cape York welfare reforms was finalised. It found that there had been significant and measurable gains in school attendance, parental responsibility and restoring local authority and leadership, as a result of these reforms. Because of the people in Cape York working with state and federal governments, and local organisations coming together, we have seen real change beginning to happen across the cape.

I want to pay special tribute today to the work of the Family Responsibilities Commission, because the FRC really is at the centre of the welfare reform process. Its objectives are to rebuild Indigenous authority and to restore social norms by reforming incentives to support socially responsible standards of behaviour at the individual, family and community levels. In the first three years of the trial, half of the adult population in the four Cape York welfare reform communities had direct contact with the Family Responsibilities Commission. Over that time, the FRC has become a very significant part of each community, with a majority of people in Cape York supporting its role in their towns.

The progress we have seen as a result of these reforms is still what you would have to call subtle, but it involves fundamental shifts in behaviour that can be expected to yield significant longer-term results. Improvements in school attendance and educational attainment will have life-changing implications for a new generation of children. Improved money-management offers immediate hope for incremental improvements to adults' quality of life. The challenge, of course, is to consolidate these gains and provide genuine economic opportunities for individuals and families to continue the journey from welfare dependence to prosperous and fulfilling lifestyles.

It is also important to note that the lessons community and government have learnt from the reforms that have taken place in Cape York are being shared with other communities across the nation—communities that want to take what is being done in the cape and adapt it to their circumstances. I have been very pleased to see this happening on Groote Eylandt and in Halls Creek, and this year a delegation from the NPY Women's Council visited Cape York to see what measures from Cape York might assist them in the Central Desert. The extension of income management in Cape York will make sure that this progress continues for the people of Hope Vale, Aurukun, Mossman Gorge and Coen, and for Indigenous people around Australia who might themselves benefit from the work being done in the cape. As the former Indigenous affairs minister I am a very strong supporter of these reforms. It is why I was pleased to announce further funding for them in this year's budget and why I am supporting them here today.

The bill also makes a number of changes to our social security system. The first such change is to family tax benefit part A eligibility rules. Currently family tax benefit part A can be paid to families with children aged 16 to 17 who are still undertaking or have completed secondary study, and to dependent full-time secondary students aged 18 until the end of the calendar year in which they turn 19. It was a Labor government that introduced significant increases in family payments for older teenagers to make sure that parents get the extra financial support needed to keep their children at school—another reform that I was very pleased to deliver. From 1 January 2014, family tax benefit part A will be paid to families with teenagers aged 16 to 19 who are in full-time study. We agree that, after a young person finishes school, youth allowance is a more appropriate payment for those who need assistance, so we will support the proposals in this legislation.

The legislation also makes changes to the rules for Australian working life residence. The Australian working life residence rules operate to determine how much of the aged pension a pensioner can receive if they travel overseas for more than 26 weeks. If a pensioner has spent less than the specified Australian working life residence period in Australia before going overseas, they receive only part of the pension and are still subject to means testing. Currently the required Australian working life residence to receive a full pension while living overseas is 25 years. This legislation amends this, extending it to 35 years. It brings our treatment of pensions more in line with the other OECD countries which typically require 35 to 45 years of contributions to receive a full pension overseas. The reform also reflects the principle of shared responsibility, that the retirement costs of a person should be shared fairly between the countries where a person has lived or worked during their working life. In such cases, there is also an expectation that a person, through periods of time living or working in another country, will be eligible to receive a pension from that country. Labor will support this measure.

The legislation also makes changes to the Pension Bonus Scheme. In 2009, the Labor government's pension review found that the Pension Bonus Scheme did not encourage older Australians to remain in work. The review also found that pensioners thought the scheme too complex and inflexible. So back in 2009, the Labor government closed the Pension Bonus Scheme. We replaced it with a more targeted and effective seniors work bonus to encourage older people to continue working. Thousands of age pensioners who are working part time or in seasonal jobs are better off because of Labor's work bonus for pensioners. Many senior Australians choose to undertake seasonal work and Labor's work bonus has enabled many aged pensioners to keep more of their fortnightly pension when they work in this way. The work bonus allows for age pensioners to earn up to $250 a fortnight from employment without it being considered income under the pension income test, and this of course is on top of the income-free area. This work bonus has been a terrific incentive for aged pensioners to engage in periodic work without being financially penalised.

When we closed the Pension Bonus Scheme, however, we left it open for people who were qualified for the Pension Bonus Scheme before 20 September 2009 but who had not registered by that date. These people were able to backdate their registration if they had been working since then and had not received the age pension. This legislation brings to a close late registration for the Pension Bonus Scheme. From 1 March 2014, people will no longer be able to register for the Pension Bonus Scheme. Eligible people can still register for the scheme before that date. This is a sensible proposal and we support it.

I now turn to measures in the legislation which extend indexation clauses on higher income thresholds for family payments and family supplements. Labor believes in a strong family payments system that reflects the needs of modern Australian families. When we were in government, we made responsible decisions over a number of budgets to better target family payments. We did this by targeting assistance to low- and middle-income families who need the most support. In the 2009-10 budget we announced a number of indexation pauses on higher income thresholds. It was a sensible reform to limit the growth in family payments at the top end and make them sustainable for the future. Today the government is seeking to extend those pauses on higher income thresholds and we support these measures.

The legislation also makes changes to the rules for receiving payments overseas. This legislation makes changes to limit the amount of time people can be overseas and retain access to Australian payments. Currently families living overseas can continue to receive family and parenting payments for up to three years. This legislation amends that to make it a maximum of 56 weeks and Labor will support this measure.

The legislation also extends deeming rules to account based income streams. This was a measure proposed by Labor in April this year and we will support it again today. The pension means test aims to determine someone's financial needs based on the level of income and assets. It is important to treat all investments in the same way so that people with similar levels of assets receive a similar pension payment rate. It is only fair, and it has long been accepted, that income people receive from financial assets should count towards the pension income test. But the current rules treat income from these account based income stream products differently from how they treat income from investments such as shares or term deposits. The rules are highly concessional for those who can afford to make minimum withdrawals, but penalise those who need to draw down more from their superannuation savings. This means that, under the current rules, people with similar levels of assets can receive different pension rates. This is unfair. It is why Labor introduced this sensible reform to extend to account based income streams the rules that apply to other income streams. We did propose this change and we will support it today.

I have indicated in my remarks so far that Labor will support a number of the measures in this legislation. But there are measures within the bill that we do not support. The first of these is a proposal to charge interest on certain welfare debts. This includes debts incurred by people on Austudy, youth allowance and Abstudy—students already on income support, students who are already doing it tough, students who do not need to be subjected to this government's cuts while trying to meet the costs of their education. It is a mean reform and we will oppose it. People on these welfare payments are already pretty vulnerable and they do not need further punishment. They need support.

The government claims that imposing interest charges will encourage debtors to repay their debts in a timely fashion, but in reality it will do just the opposite. By imposing interest charges on debts, the government is actually making it harder for people to repay their debts, making it harder for them to make ends meet. So we will not support these measures. We have seen this week how this government approaches students, particularly school students, and now we are seeing another measure that is designed to—and would—hurt low-income students. We will not support this change.

We will also not be supporting the student start-up loans that have been proposed in this legislation. This measure seeks to convert the current Student Start-up Scholarships program into an income contingent loan program to be offered to full-time higher education students in receipt of youth allowance, Austudy or Abstudy. It is the case that when we were in government we did propose a similar measure, but I want to emphasise that the measure we proposed had one purpose: to fund the Better Schools Plan, to make a significant contribution to increasing funding for our schools. As we have seen day after day this week, that plan now lies in tatters.

Despite the government going to the election on what they called a 'unity ticket' on schools funding, they are now walking away from Labor's Better Schools Plan. Yesterday in question time, the Prime Minister refused to commit to the $14.65 billion in additional funding for schools that was promised by the Labor Party as part of our Better Schools Plan. The government are giving no assurance that states will not cut schools funding. Unfortunately, parents and teachers are finding already that this government cannot be trusted on education. There is no sign that they would use the funds from this measure for education. Right now, it is quite clear that this is a cut for the sake of cutting. The Labor Party cannot and will not support it.

Another measure in this legislation is the extension of the freeze on indexation of the upper limit of $7,500 on the annual child care rebate. Labor will oppose this measure as well. We have been strong supporters of increased support for Australian families struggling to meet the costs of child care. When we were in government, we increased the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent and we increased the annual cap from $4,354 to the current limit of $7,500. When we proposed the savings measure that is in this legislation, it was to directly support the $300 million Early Years Quality Fund, a fund established to support quality outcomes for children by assisting early childhood services to attract and retain early childhood educators. Just two weeks ago, the Abbott government put a freeze on this fund. As a result, they are left with absolutely no justification for pursuing $100 million in cuts by freezing indexation of the upper limit of the childcare rebate. So we will not support this change.

The final measure I want to discuss today is the proposed change to the administration of the Paid Parental Leave Scheme. This legislation seeks to remove the role of employers in administering paid parental leave for their employees and to give that function entirely to Centrelink. It was of course Labor that introduced this country's first ever national paid parental leave scheme—a major reform I was very pleased to deliver. Already we have seen around 300,000 parents, largely women, get access to paid parental leave since it was introduced in January 2011. We have also seen 37,000 dads and same-sex partners access dad and partner pay since January 2013.

Since its introduction, this scheme has been administered in part by employers. When we designed the Paid Parental Leave Scheme, the employer role was included in order to help employers retain their skilled staff. It was also a way of enabling people, especially women, to remain connected to work and their careers while they were taking time out of the workforce to have a baby or adopt a child. But as the scheme progressed we listened to business and understood that in tough economic environments small businesses needed to be able to devote their scarce time to adapting and thriving in a changing economy. That is why, for the 2013 election campaign, we adopted a position of allowing businesses with fewer than 20 employees to streamline administration and have Centrelink make paid parental leave payments to employees on parental leave. This was a sensible balance between the need for employees on parental leave to maintain a relationship with their employers and the need to give small businesses the option of having their paid parental leave administered by Centrelink.

Unfortunately this legislation takes this a step further, completely abolishing the role of the employer in administering paid parental leave. In my view, it does not strike the right balance. Rather, it severs the important link between employers and their employees. This is not good for women and it is not good for employers. We will not be supporting this measure. We will introduce amendments which would limit the applicability of this measure to organisations with 20 employees or less. Our amendments would give these organisations the choice of continuing as the payer of paid parental leave to their long-term employees or passing the administration to Centrelink. Our amendments would get the balance right.

In conclusion, Labor will support the sensible savings measures in this legislation, but there are some measures in it that we do not support. We think that the interest charges on debts incurred by people on income support are particularly harsh and we will also not support the freeze on the childcare rebate or the conversion of the student start-up loans. As I indicated, we will seek to amend the role of the employer in Labor's Paid Parental Leave Scheme to make sure that small businesses have the choice of using Centrelink if they want to, but for larger businesses it is certainly in the interests of employers and employees that employers continue to be the payer for their long-term employees. I commend the amendments to the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow minister has opened the floodgates on what Labor would support in government but will not support in opposition. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill is important to many people across the spectrum of the Australian community, and I am staggered that the Labor government would introduce such harsh measures in government and then come into this place with some spurious excuse about why they were doing something that we now cannot. This is especially the case with the introduction of interest charges for student debts. The background notes on the bill say it is a saving commitment made by the former government as part of the 2012 MYEFO. It is part of the Labor government's changes. Student start-up loans were also part of the Labor government's changes and were provided for in its budget.

It is remarkable that those opposite have come into the 44th Parliament and they have said that here are the arrangements we had when we were in government but we are completely turning our backs on those arrangements. There are only two items in the whole of this legislation that are not proposals of the previous government, and they are the changes to do with gambling reform—that is important, and I will come to it in a moment—and the way paid parental leave will be administered. They are the only two things in this massive piece of legislation that we are changing. All the rest of the proposals in the bill are Labor government proposals. Now the shadow minister says that they will support half of those, the ones they feel comfortable with.

Those opposite ought to think about all those people who historically have identified with the Labor Party but who in the last election clearly identified with the coalition. The way they treat people is the reason they are not in government today, and we, as a new government, should be reminded that when we effect legislation like this we can change people's lives. We can change them for the better; we can change them for the worse. Legislation can affect their income and affect their daily lives. I am appalled that the previous government would come into this place and say, 'Here is what we were going to do to this group of people when we were in government but, now we are not in government, a conscience has struck us, we feel terrible about it, this was never our intention but we had to do it because we were told to do it, and we have had to change our minds.' Who were they told by? They have no idea, but they have left us in a budget situation that is so difficult that we have to go along with some of these draconian measures until such time as we can get things sorted out.

The shadow minister said that the Labor Party's commitment was that as an opposition they would work through the issues and their approach to problem gambling. Yesterday in the House the member for Denison asked a question. I like the way the member for Denison works, because he has a passion for gambling reform. I accept that. He said:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, your government wants to overturn the 43rd Parliament's modest poker machine reforms, so I want to know how all the avowed Christians in the government care so little for Australia's 95,000 poker machine problem gamblers and the people they affect—or do they just care a whole lot more about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the coalition has received from the poker machine industry?

I do not know where the second part of his question came from, because I did not receive a cent from the poker machine industry and I do not know of any of my colleagues who did. Mr Wilkie was asked to change the 'avowed Christians' part of his question so as not to reflect on anyone. What has happened in this process? This parliament was in a hung situation where the government of the day relied on a small number of individuals for its very existence. In that heated process the raising of a single issue, gambling reform, the scourge of poker machines in this country, came forth through the member for Denison. I can accept that, in that situation, but I put to the member for Denison that now we have the opportunity to properly address the issues, as the shadow minister indicated. She talked about the social costs of gambling, particularly poker machines, being $5 billion and gambling losses in this country being around $19 billion. I am not a friend of the poker machine. Some 30 years ago I put $20 into a poker machine and I did not get any back, so I have never put any in since. Having said that, we now have the chance, with the Labor Party, to work through the issues.

I say to the member for Denison: do not give up on your dream of changing the way we approach gambling reform. What the government is doing here, with the removal of the previous legislation, is saying, 'We are prepared,' as the Prime Minister said yesterday. Mr Abbott made three statements: firstly, we support voluntary precommitment—that is, machines that you can precommit to—in regard to poker machines; secondly, we support more counselling for problem gamblers; thirdly, we will implement stronger restrictions on online gambling. This government is prepared to now quietly work through the process of how we might address this issue. Having always personally seen this as more of an issue under state administration, I accept that we do not need to be the regulator. But I can understand how the member for Denison wants to champion this issue, and I believe Senator Xenophon also wants to champion this issue. They believe they are here on that issue.

Whilst that is important, as are the other measures in here, we now have a chance to quietly work through the processes to allow for a reasonable response from this parliament in regard to problem gambling, as we do for other social problems that affect the community in general. We, as a parliament, whether we liked it or not, have changed the packaging for cigarettes. We invest a lot of money in trying to reduce the consumption of alcohol across the country. In these steps here we have changed welfare payments in parts of our community to make sure that they are directed at the area where they need to be focused. That has been supported by the shadow minister today. But, as the minister, she implemented those changes. They are addressed in here today, and we continue to fund that trial. Remember, that is a trial in parts of the communities in Australia where we have reforms in place that force people to set aside a certain amount of their welfare payments for the benefit of their families. That is to encourage them, hopefully, to make sure their kids get to school and to make sure they have something to eat. Hopefully, we are moving through a process whereby communities may be changed. I am not saying they will be, and the minister did talk about incremental benefits in regard to this.

This bill is very large. I do not know whether some of the measures in this bill will be effective. I do not know whether an interest charge on student loans is appropriate. I think we should be doing all we can for our students. But, having said that, when you come into government and there are massive constraints on the budget rather than funds available for you to press for your programs, I understand why we will argue in this bill that we cannot step away from the position that the previous Labor government has left us in. Now I say that with all sincerity. I expect that some of the people affected by the changes in these bills would be very disappointed in the previous government for introducing this, and they would have expected us to repeal the legislation that was put in place, if we could choose to. However, we find ourselves in a position where we are unable to do that.

The paid parental leave change really is only to take the burden off small business. Of course, coming out of small business myself—if any of you know my background, and I do not expect you to—I know that the burdens of administration and red tape are thrown around very easily. But the people out in our businesses right across this nation—and they are the greatest employers of people right around Australia—are the ones who are staying up in the wee hours of the night filling in forms and papers, paying their taxes, filling in their BAS statements—which are an absolute pain in the neck—or having someone fill in their BAS statements for them, and paying their taxes. All they want to do is get on with their job. In this regard, we are saying the department can pay that directly. The employer can opt in to be part of paying the paid parental leave scheme; otherwise it will be paid directly by the parliament. I think it is a very, very reasonable change for the government to take responsibility for the actions that it takes that usually put a burden, such as another piece of red tape or another overlay of legislation—whatever that might be—on another business.

We see here the Abbott government taking responsibility for the programs that it administers. It is not asking business to administer them, but directly asking the department—our administration. It is a hobbyhorse of mine that governments in all areas should understand that it costs money to administer this nation, and we should be allocating what is appropriate for the general public to administer and what is appropriate for the government to administer. Democracy costs money. We keep on diminishing the amount of funds that we are prepared to spend on this institution, this parliament and other aspects of government activity. I see it as a very important directional guide for this parliament to say that here is a government that, for the first time, is prepared to take responsibility for the burden that it has placed upon small business, especially, across this country. It is saying to them that it is going to take that administrative burden off small business, it is going to give it to the department, and it is going to pay for that administration. This parliament is going to pay for that administration.

That is a giant step forward, because I do not believe that previous governments—and I am talking about governments, not about the Labor government but about the previous governments in this country—have found it too easy to introduce laws and then place all the administration and responsibility, particularly, and the burden of that responsibility, onto businesses across this country, by the flick of a pen from a bureaucrat who says, 'No, this is how you will do it.' Even with the BAS statements, governments realised the burden they had put on a lot of small business, and they made change after change after change. Because there is so much in this legislation—and there is quite a bit of it; you just heard the shadow minister go through it—I have to have a look at the motives. It seems reasonable that you might say, 'Well, you have lived in this country for 25 years, we are going to move that to 35 years because that fits in with the OECD outline.' But I just wonder who it is in the community that they need to address on these issues. I think there were some underlying reasons, under the previous government, that never came out in the legislation. All of these changes need to be monitored to see whether they work. In regard to the change to the Pension Bonus Scheme, the previous government actually found out it did not work, which was rather interesting. People just took advantage of it; it was a ripper for them. And that is what happened—people looked at that scheme and said, 'Oh, what a beauty: the government will pay me if I continue in work'. And they were going to continue in work anyway. So why do we intervene in these sorts of areas? When people are in their 60s, 70s and 80s, they choose to work or not work. In this country—it is an amazing country—they can actually choose to work or not, which is quite different to what happens in most other countries around the world. These proposed changes are proper changes, they are appropriate changes, but they need to be monitored. Because—as with many of these things—I say to the members of this House: it is not how the very wealthy will deal with it; they are not part of it. It is not even how those in the middle-income brackets will deal with it. A lot of the people who are addressed in this particular piece of legislation are our most vulnerable. If we have any responsibility in this place, it is to those people who are the most vulnerable. (Time expired)

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow minister outlined our position in relation to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013. I rise to support what she has to say. I do not propose to go through every single aspect of this omnibus bill, except to say that it is typical of a coalition government that comes into power that it wants to undertake cuts—allegedly for savings measures but, in fact, engaging in cuts which will have an adverse impact on families and individuals around the country.

The coalition cannot help themselves. The moment they get in, whether it is at a federal level or a state level, their instinct—in their DNA, and in their blood and bone—is to undertake cuts which mean that families will struggle with their cost of living. So much for the feigning and the protestations we saw from those opposite, worrying about cost-of-living pressures. This bill, if passed, will result in a terrible reduction in income available for families around the country to feed and clothe themselves, to educate their children, to meet their household needs, and to make sure that their health services are delivered and that they can pay for them. It means that families will have less money available in their household budgets to meet their needs. We see in this bill an example, once again, of those opposite not listening to regional and rural areas, and not listening to the needs of middle-class and working class Australians. We will be opposing a number of aspects of this bill—the interest charges in relation to certain welfare debts, the student start-up loans, and the proposed extension of the annual childcare rebate limit—and we will defend Australian families in relation to this. Speakers on this side, I am certain, will also talk about our legacy.

Last night I spoke in relation to another piece of legislation which was an example of how the coalition works. Like the Howard coalition government, which undertook a five per cent reduction in the funding for the higher education sector the moment they got into power—the imposition of WorkChoices on the higher education sector and the reduction of capital infrastructure in the higher education sector—what the coalition is doing here is making further changes to impact adversely on the higher education sector in this country. I do not know why the coalition are doing this—except that it must be about looking for this fictional 'budget emergency' that they cannot find anywhere. They used to talk about it all the time. I can remember them promising—of course!—that they would have surpluses each and every year of the life of their government. Well, that sort of language does not emanate from those opposite now. I can recall the now Treasurer talking about this. I presume this budget emergency is like the sort of hysteria that they demonstrated many times when they would get up at this dispatch box and wax lyrical about how we were sending the country bankrupt et cetera. That is nonsense. They know it is nonsense. This legislation should not be passed in this form. It will have an adverse impact on Australian families. It is a cruel attack on Australian students. Students are already doing it tough—anyone who goes to university knows it is not easy to get through university—and the application of this charge will do just the opposite of making it easier: it will make it harder for students to make repayments.

I want to talk about one aspect of this bill, and to give the coalition credit in relation to a Cape York issue which is also part of this particular bill. When I was chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, in the course of looking at Indigenous justice around the country the committee examined issues in relation to what was happening up in the Cape. The Cape York Welfare Reform trial was started some years ago. We looked at it in our report, which was called Doing timetime for doing: Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system. We recommended to the Commonwealth government in recommendation 38 'that the Australian Government in partnership with the Queensland Government and the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership extend the funding of the Family Responsibility Commission'. At that stage, we recommended this extension of funding until December 2013, pending further evaluation. In previous budgets we provided funding for the FRC of $16 million or thereabouts until December 2012, and we extended that funding and continued it onwards in relation to those communities, such as Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge. That sort of whole-of-community approach to caring for students, making sure kids got to school, and families being supported with social norms, community support, eldership support and mentoring, started back in July 2008. The purpose of it is to restore socially responsible behaviour, to assist communities to assume responsibility for school attendance, and to improve personal resilience and community and family life. We funded that. We made sure that that was important, and that it would be undertaken. I commend the government for continuing that particular funding. This legislation, I confess and admit, contains provisions in relation to that continuing funding. We have seen significant gains already in Cape York as a result of this. We had committed $24.5 million over two years to December 2015 to improve Indigenous people's lives up on the Cape. I do think it has made an impact.

There was an evaluation undertaken in March 2013 which showed gains had been made in personal responsibility for attending school and in family and community life. I commend the government for undertaking this. Sadly and tragically, we have not seen the same reciprocity of commitment from the Queensland government. In fact, there was a time when the Queensland government said it would dramatically reduce its funding, which it did, but then it was shamed by the public cry in Queensland into making some contribution to that particular trial. The Queensland government needs to restore its funding to previous levels to ensure that this trial continues to operate in the way it needs to. We are calling on the Queensland LNP government to show its commitment to Indigenous people on the Cape to do the right thing and invest in these important reforms. We did so, and I admit that the current government is also doing so at the moment. I commend them for it. It is important work that needs to be done to make sure that Indigenous people get the kind of its assistance they need, particularly in remote areas.

However, I cannot say the same for the rest of the bill. There are aspects of this particular bill we will not agree to—especially the conversion of the student start-up scholarships to income-contingent loans. We think it is unfair and puts a burden on the higher education sector. Labor really supported the tertiary sector: in 2007, when we came to power, investment in the sector stood at $8.1 billion and had increased to $14 billion in 2013. That stands in stark contrast to those opposite. When many of their ministers were sitting in the cabinet room with Prime Minister John Howard, they cut funding to tertiary education. In Labor's term we saw a massive increase in participation rates of tertiary students. There are 190,000 more students at university today as a result of Labor's reforms, along with a 73 per cent increase in funding. We also made massive investment in capital infrastructure for universities. Unlike the billions of dollars ripped out of the system through neglect by those opposite when they were in power post-1996, we made sure that we invested. Real funding per student increased from $16,277 to $18,000 under the federal Labor government. Commonwealth funded places increased by 35 per cent. We also saw in my shadow portfolio of Indigenous affairs an increase of 26 per cent in the number of Indigenous students attending university—up from 9,329 in 2007 to 12,595 students in 2012.

The coalition government is risking all of that by what it is doing to support for families and for students. The real risk is posed by the review David Kemp will be leading at the request of the Minister for Education. It will see demand-driven, uncapped placements for universities put at risk through cuts in the name of quality, because that is what the minister talks about all the time. I predict that we will see a different system brought in as a result of this review. They will make changes for one purpose only: to create elitist universities, and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds will not get the support they need to enter. We will oppose this position. The coalition is seeking to cut $2.3 billion from higher education.

In government we said we would make changes to the higher education system to slow the rate of funding growth to ensure that our Better Schools plan—which would have cost a total of $14.6 billion—was embraced. It was a way of enhancing the whole education system, from primary through to tertiary, by having students with better literacy and numeracy, better teacher development, better capital infrastructure and better ICT. We believe it was a great plan, but the coalition walked away from that unity ticket, and now we will not support them on this issue. We had one specific purpose before the election, and it was to fund our Better Schools plan, but the coalition will not support it.

On issues such as the extension of the annual childcare rebate limit, the coalition has once again betrayed families. The government will not support middle- and lower-income families. The best example of that must be the changes they intend to paid parental leave. We will see wealthy families enhanced by an extravagant and ridiculous paid parental scheme that comes at the expense of battling families in my electorate of Blair and elsewhere. We introduced a paid-parental-leave scheme in this country. Famously, the then Leader of the Opposition and now the Prime Minister said that our scheme would come in over his dead body. It was a sensible, moderate scheme which gave the average minimum wage for 18 weeks and which operated jointly with the baby bonus. The payments would have been periodic rather than the lump sum John Howard and Peter Costello insisted on.

Those opposite feigned concern for the cost-of-living pressures on families, yet one of their first acts in this parliament will be to get rid of the schoolkids bonus—$410 for a primary school student and $820 for a high school student. That means that a family living in Flinders View in my electorate with two kids, one going to Raceview State School and one to Bremer State High School, loses $15,000. What are the government doing here? They are pausing indexation rates. They are impacting on the cost-of-living pressures on families. In relation to other aspects of support for families, what they have done cannot be ignored. They are getting rid of the low-income superannuation contribution, affecting 20,900 low-income families, mainly women, in my electorate. As I mentioned before, 15,900 families in my electorate will be adversely affected by the loss of the schoolkids bonus.

Legislation like this adversely impacts not just Labor held electorates but electorates of those opposite. There are plenty of new people in this place who will have to go back to their electorate offices in their communities and explain why they voted to make life harder for struggling families. As I have said before, there are consequences to the way you vote in this place, and people will not forget it. At the next election, when members opposite look people in the eye and say, 'I made it harder for you to pay your school fees, to send your kids to school, to meet your HELP costs and to meet your grocery and household costs,' they will be asking for their vote. There are consequences to the way they vote. I ask them to reconsider their position. This is pernicious and punishing legislation and it should be opposed. (Time expired)

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I come to the detailed content of this bill, I would like to take up some issues raised by the member for Blair, who spoke before me. At the beginning of his speech he lectured this place about delivering budget surpluses, and he talked about consequences. I think it is important that we do not forget that the member for Blair was part of a government that promised the Australian people on literally hundreds of occasions that they would deliver a budget surplus, yet they actually delivered the largest deficits we have ever seen. As we come into government we inherit hundreds of billions of dollars worth of debt. So, if there are consequences for what you do in this place, I think it is incumbent upon us as members to be honest with the Australian people, and the member for Blair was part of a government that promised one thing hundreds of times and delivered the largest deficits we have seen as a nation.

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 is a multifaceted instrument addressing a range of significant social, welfare and workplace reforms. These changes are indicative of the coalition's plans not only to return Australia to economic prosperity but to restore a better supported, more functional and cohesive society, a nation where fiscal and social capital is spent wisely and not wasted as we saw with the previous, Labor government's penchant for tipping hundreds of billions of dollars into partly formed thought bubbles such as overpriced school halls and pink batts.

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill announces this government's intention to apply sober perspective in its approach to problem gambling. The coalition does not for a moment back away from the contention that gambling is a major issue for some Australians, with those individuals and their families racked by trauma, upheaval and hardship of every description. But, at the same time, any response to gambling must recognise that many Australians gamble responsibly. Hardworking Australians trying to get ahead also rely on the sector for jobs, and legislation as it currently stands will place many venues under financial and regulatory stress.

In my electorate, these businesses include the Caboolture Sports Club, which has grown from humble origins to become the region's premier community club, last year being named Brisbane north's best club for the second time. The club opened its doors in 1997 after six local sporting groups representing softball, touch football, cricket, dog obedience, soccer and rugby union formed a single incorporation and raised the necessary finance. Since then the club has undergone rapid sporting and general membership growth. It boasts superb bistros, bars, shows and events, and the new gambling room features 275 of the newest gambling machines. However, Caboolture Sports Club proudly remains a not-for-profit organisation driven by rusted-on core values aimed at enhancing the community. The club each year gives more than $1 million in both cash and in-kind support to a variety of local service groups, sporting clubs, individuals, and charities. The Caboolture Sports Club takes responsible gambling seriously, with staff trained in the responsible service of gambling working in tandem with trained customer liaison officers who are on hand at all times to discuss help services available to their patrons.

This government is strongly of the view that counselling and research into problem gambling must be supported—not only in pursuit of effective help services for the gamblers but to better root out the causes of this social ill. This road map towards responsible gambling has been our consistent direction. It is a path with too much riding on it to be politicised. But duplicitous political expediency is exactly what underscored the previous Labor government's game of 'deal or no deal' with the Independent member for Denison. After the 2010 election, former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreed to legislate the member's proposals on mandatory precommitment technology for poker machines in exchange for his support. His backing was required for Labor to hang on to the office of Prime Minister.

Then, in a dramatic turn of events, the honourable member ripped up his contract to back the minority government when Ms Gillard refused to proceed with the policy lock, stock and barrel—yet another of the discarded pledges that littered the Rudd-Gillard era. 'We should be able to trust our politicians to keep their word,' the member for Denison said. 'Frankly, a deal is a deal.' The reason former Prime Minister Gillard covered herself in dishonour by walking away from her agreement of convenience was her realisation that mandatory precommitment was untenable in the eyes of industry experts and, for that matter, most Australians. Mandatory precommitment—forcing gamblers to subscribe to daily betting limits—is tantamount to a 'licence to play'.

Aside from its draconian application, it has been unmasked as an utterly flawed policy. Since the introduction of mandatory precommitment in Norway in 2009, the number of compulsive gamblers has almost doubled, with many of them shifting from poker machines to other forms of betting such as online gambling.

The coalition government's considered approach to gambling addiction is targeted at reducing the problems, not fanning them. We will not be enacting mandatory precommitment of electronic gambling machines. But we do support a national voluntary precommitment program as part of a broader plan to assist problem gamblers. We will work with clubs and gaming venues on a realistic timetable for the introduction of venue based, voluntary precommitment.

Another glaring inadequacy in the watered down version of mandatory precommitment that Labor retreated to was that it was thrust on the national agenda without adequate consultation with the state and territory governments that actually carry the primary jurisdictional responsibility for gambling and also receive the revenue. Now we are left with a national regulatory system rubbing uncomfortably against those of the states and territories.

But under the amendments in this bill the government will remove from the National Gambling Reform Act references to a proposed precommitment trial in the ACT and further cut duplication by restoring state and territory control over withdrawal limits on automatic teller machines in gaming venues. In slashing red tape, the coalition is determined to install an overarching best-practice gambling policy that will deliver real, meaningful and measurable support for problem gamblers.

The National Gambling Regulator established by Labor, notwithstanding the fact that every state and territory has gambling regulators, will be repealed under this bill. The levies which were to support its functions will also be scrapped. Our amendments to the National Gambling Reform Act reinforce our election commitment to remove unnecessary regulatory duplication and to work with industry, state and territory governments, academia and the community to sustain responsible gambling.

It is critical that any effective policy response to problem gambling be trained in all its forms—not just poker machines—or we run the risk, as we have seen in Norway, of chronic gamblers substituting one form of betting for another form. Funds freed from the shutdown of the National Gambling Regulator will be diverted into additional counselling and treatment services for Australians who have problems with their gambling and need understanding, genuine help and support.

This bill also proposes reforms to paid parental leave, or PPL, that will cut business a big break on the compliance burden they have suffered under the previous Labor government's scheme. Put simply, small businesses will no longer be required to do the government's hard yards on administering paid parental leave. The reform is not only significant, but emblematic of the coalition's drive to eliminate red tape and administrative costs that are costing the Australian economy at least $1 billion a year.

Currently, employers are forced to act as unpaid pay clerks after receiving an employee's paid parental leave entitlement from Centrelink. This system is unnecessarily complex and forces small businesses to bear the costs of the extra workload and of restructuring their payroll and accounting systems. Employers will still be able to opt in to manage PPL for their workers if both parties agree to do so. But, unless so specified, these changes will see parents paid their leave directly by the Department of Human Services from 1 March next year. This government knows that employers do not need extra paperwork, and they certainly do not need the cash-flow problems that have arisen as a result of the bureaucratic quagmire that Labor created with its parental leave scheme.

In fact, on top of the world's largest carbon tax, the departed Labor government instituted more than 40 other new or increased taxes and 21,000 new regulations. Local small businesses need the confidence to grow, invest and create jobs. But they cannot do this while being punitively taxed and regulated. The reason we still have people entering small business is that they desire autonomy and flexibility; they want to be the masters of their own fate. They certainly do not have human resources departments to cope with mountains of senseless paperwork. The more you stifle small business, the more you strike at innovation and creativity; you choke the potential of small businesses to become the big businesses of the future. That is why the coalition are steadfastly sticking to our program of dismantling unwarranted and excessive regulation. We know just how much it will help our local businesses to breathe and grow again.

These amendments to the administration of paid parental leave in this bill are an important antecedent to this government's new landmark paid parental leave scheme due to be given effect from 1 July 2015. Mothers will be provided with 26 weeks leave based on their actual wage instead of the current scheme paying 18 weeks at the national minimum wage. It means that more women will be eligible for PPL, that payments will be made over a longer period and that the overwhelming majority of women will receive a higher payment because it is based on real earnings, not an indiscriminate minimum wage. Those earning the average full-time salary for women will be more than $21,000 better off.

We are fast approaching a crossroads. Our ageing population and the rising associated costs of health, aged care and welfare pose an intergenerational challenge of epic proportions. Women entering the workforce triggered the biggest productivity gain of the past 30 years. Today, there is no equivalent labour force impetus lying untapped. But over the longer term this government's paid parental leave scheme can only help defend Treasury coffers from the buffeting that is coming with demographic change. The coalition's scheme has been designed to keep women in the workforce. If more people are in better jobs, earning higher real wages, then—remarkably!—they pay more tax. Effectively, our PPL scheme is a productivity increasing measure.

Finally, I would like to briefly turn the House's attention to a matter close to my heart—the implementation of a genuine National Disability Insurance Scheme. This bill imparts a layer of security for some of our most vulnerable. It introduces measures that ensure the funding for reasonable and necessary support under a participant's support plan can only be used for the purpose of purchasing support. In effect, the amendments make NDIS amounts protected. They prevent third parties from recovering debts through garnisheeing NDIS participants' bank accounts that are kept for the sole purpose of managing their support funding. The coalition has an unflinching support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We will deliver the announced spending on the scheme and honour the agreements in place between the Commonwealth and the states and territories for its full rollout.

As I have said before in this place, improving disability policy was one of the prime motivators for my getting into politics. I have a close friend, Pat, who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy. I worked as his participation assistant. I have seen first hand the obstacles and roadblocks thrown up by an overly bureaucratic disability system, one that is focused on process instead of outcome. Australia's late, great Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies envisaged a society made all the richer by its obligations to the most vulnerable. He said:

The purpose of all measures of social security is not only to provide citizens with some reasonable protection against misfortune but also to reconcile that provision with their proud independence and dignity as democratic citizens. The time has gone when social justice should even appear to take the form of social charity.

It is this spirit that the National Disability Insurance Scheme should capture, ensuring every Australian has equal opportunity to live a better, more dignified and more productive life. We all deserve our shot at the brightest possible future irrespective of circumstances. That is what the National Disability Insurance Scheme will deliver.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Primarily, I want to focus on the portion of this bill, the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, that will continue the work of the Cape York welfare reform, which has been a spectacular success. I would like to get on the record a few things about that. I will raise one other issue, the decision to freeze the cap on the childcare rebate. That decision is incredibly regressive and highlights the absurdity of going with a super-deluxe paid parental leave scheme that will advantage the very wealthiest women in this community while at the same time effectively, in real money terms, cutting the childcare rebate. It is child care far more than paid parental leave that is the thing we need to improve to enable women to re-establish themselves in the workforce. It is absolutely absurd that we are establishing a Rolls-Royce paid parental leave scheme while at the same time effectively cutting the childcare rebate for families right across Australia.

I will talk primarily about the Cape York welfare trial and the proposal, which we support, in this bill to continue that. The trial has been very much the work of Noel Pearson. The welfare trial, which commenced in 2008, has established some major achievements in those communities. A report into its effectiveness, which came out earlier this year, compared student attendance in those communities and tracked it against comparable Indigenous communities. It became quite clear that there was a very significant increase in attendance in schools across the Cape York Peninsula that could not be explained by anything other than the reforms that had taken place there. Very interestingly, there was also a significant drop in the amount of violence and assaults over the period of the trial, particularly at Aurukun. Two-thirds of the respondents felt that this reform had been very positive for the community; 52 per cent of respondents felt that people were trying to be better parents; 24 per cent felt that more people were trying to give up grog, smoking and gambling; and 33 per cent said they felt that there was less fighting between families.

I acknowledge the work of the member for Jagajaga in her role as minister for Indigenous affairs and the support that she gave to Noel Pearson to make these programs possible. They have been a great success. It is important that, when we see all of the developments that will come up over the next couple of years, we do not forget that it was Labor that was prepared to work with those communities and put that welfare reform in place. We are pleased that it is being extended, but I would like the credit to go where credit is due.

I can see that there has been major achievement in the educational development of children in Cape York schools. Again, this arises out of the vision of Noel Pearson and his team and their determination to trial a range of different pedagogical techniques to find one that really delivered for their kids. They came across explicit instruction and then moved into a more fully developed direct instruction model. That has turned around the academic performance of those kids. Many, many more children in those schools are now meeting the minimum benchmark. What is really pleasing to see is the number of kids who are moving well beyond those minimum benchmarks and performing at the higher level on NAPLAN.

I want this to be understood: this was an initiative. When one talks to Noel Pearson about this initiative, he talks about the support that he got from the member for Jagajaga, because there was resistance in the Queensland bureaucracy for them to go in and take over the management of the schools and put this new pedagogical practice in place. The then Indigenous affairs minister, Minister Macklin, was 100 per cent behind Noel Pearson and went into bat with the Queensland government to have control and responsibility for those three schools ceded to the Cape York group. Their performance has been nothing short of stellar. They went in there in a holistic way. They built the parents' confidence and engagement, they built the attendances at the school, and then they came in with an instructional method that ensured that these kids were able to learn to read and write. Success breeds success. When these kids started achieving, when they started being able to perform at school, that encouraged them to stay on. This, in turn, improved attendances. It is a virtuous circle.

There are people, including the Minister for Education, who are really trying to rewrite this whole movement towards explicit instruction as some sort of left-right debate. I want to make it very clear that this is not part of a left-right debate. Indeed, it has been the Labor government that has supported the communities that have wanted to go down this path and provided them with the wherewithal to provide that instruction and achieve those excellent results. So I hope that we do see explicit instruction moving beyond Cape York. It is in around six or so schools in Western Australia. A lot more interest in it is being gained. But, please, let us not trivialise this issue by making it some sort of ideological left-right debate. It cannot be that.

I am very pleased that the funding for that welfare reform which underpinned a whole raft of changes on Cape York is being continued. Again, I recognise the work of the member for Jagajaga in really being the force in government behind the support for that community.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, and I commend this bill to the House. This bill will aid the coalition's election commitment to reducing the red tape burden and compliance costs on businesses by $1 billion a year. These unnecessary burdens are stifling our economy. If we can get rid of unnecessary red tape we can make our country more productive, which means we can have more jobs and a stronger economy.

As has been indicated the bill incorporates a range of important measures, and I intend to address some of the major features of the bill. They include adopting savings announced by the previous government, which shows that Labor says one thing in government and a very different thing in opposition. The sheer hypocrisy is on show for all to see. I find it extraordinary that the member for Blair has the gall to speak about surpluses. Where is the surplus from Labor? We never saw it. Over six years, what we saw was year after year of record deficits. I take the liberty to remind the House of those numbers: $27 billion, $55 billion, $48 billion, $43.7 billion, $19 billion and now $30.1 billion. Australians place real value on responsible economic management, and this is a shameful record.

In this bill we are tackling problem gambling by abolishing unnecessary red tape and duplication. Our bill will combine effective measures to help provide people who really need it. Electronic gaming statistics from Corangamite, the electorate I represent, show why it is so important that we get gambling legislation right. From July 2012 to June 2013, people in the City of Greater Geelong spent more than $108 million on electronic gaming machines. The people of Colac-Otway Shire spent more than $7 million from July 2012 to June 2013. People living in Surf Coast Shire spent more than $2. 8 million in that time.

Gambling is a major problem for some people in my electorate. However, many people in my electorate also gamble responsibly. Many Australians rely on the sector for jobs, and the legislation Labor left will put many venues under financial stress. Labor failed to win a majority at the 2012 election, and the former Prime Minister Julia Gillard did a dodgy deal with the member for Denison to hold onto power. As part of that deal, Julia Gillard committed to introducing a mandatory precommitment system for pokie machines. Labor eventually stabbed the member for Denison in the back and walked away from mandatory precommitment because they realised what the coalition had said from day one: mandatory precommitment does not work.

The coalition government supports venue based voluntary precommitments for poker machines. We are committed to delivering meaningful support for problem gamblers while also cutting red tape. That is why we are introducing amendments to the national gambling reform legislation that will deliver on several election commitments. The government will also abolish the national gambling regulator, which Labor established despite the fact that every state and territory has a regulator for gambling. The government will also abolish the supervisory levy. We believe that the states and territories are more than capable of continuing to regulate the gambling industry.

This bill also reflects our government's determination to ease administrative burdens on business by ensuring that the government does the paperwork for paid parental leave. Unlike Labor, we understand that red tape costs businesses money. The extra burden of administration duties is one that most employers can do without. Businesses will no longer have to act as paymaster of the Commonwealth government's paid parental leave scheme unless they choose otherwise. Because we recognise that small business has been struggling with red tape, we are moving to reduce the compliance burden on small business in our first 100 days. The coalition government will ensure small business has the time and resources to invest in their business success, rather than doing the government's work.

I am incredibly proud of our genuine paid parental leave scheme which reflects a genuine commitment to families, to women, to workplace productivity and to 26 weeks paid leave at the real wage. The amendment that Labor is proposing will add more compliance complexity and shows that Labor simply does not get it. It is proposing that employers with more than 20 employees will have to bear the administrative costs of paid parental leave. These are small businesses, the engine room of our economy, and it is time Labor understood that small business needs support, not more burdens. I note that the member for Dunkley is in the House today—a small business minister in cabinet. This reflects our genuine commitment to the small business people of this country.

I now turn to measures relating to Labor's 2013-14 budget. Unfortunately, Labor's reckless spending has left the budget in a dreadful state. Because of this the coalition has little choice but to match a number of savings made by Labor. A number of measures in this bill will help fix Labor's mess. But it seems that members opposite are in denial about what they did when they were in government. This is to be condemned. I refer to our changes to the family tax benefit and the eligibility rules. This change will see family tax benefit part A paid to families only up to the end of the calendar year in which their teenager is completing school. Eligible young people will still be able to access youth allowance to help them transition from school into work or post-secondary study. They will still have to participate in work, job search activity, study or training. Youth allowance remains the most appropriate payment to help young people transition from school into work or post-secondary study. This bill fixes Labor's failure to make the legislative changes required to implement this savings measure of $76.6 million over four years.

We have also committed to saving $80.5 million over three years by ending late registrations for the pension bonus. This measure will tighten the rules for certain payments to be made to people outside Australia. The bill will require age pensioners to have been an Australian resident for 35 years during their working life to receive their full means-tested pension if they choose to retire overseas or travel overseas for longer than 26 weeks. This replaces the current 25-year requirement. This will bring Australia into line with a host of other international systems and make the system fairer.

We have little choice but to match Labor's savings measure to maintain the childcare rebate annual limit at $7,500 for three more years. The bill fixes Labor's failure to make the legislative changes required to implement this savings measure. I remind the House that we have inherited Labor's budget deficit of $30.1 billion and the Australian people have put their faith in our government to restore Australia's finances. Last week I visited the Millville Child Care Centre in Colac in the western half of my electorate. I spoke with the director, Cathy Thompson, and her staff, and I really learnt a lot more about the pressures that early educators are under. We are committed to ensuring families have access to high-quality, affordable child care that meets their needs. This is why it is a priority for this government to have the Productivity Commission conduct an inquiry into child care and early childhood learning. I welcome this review.

It is absolutely extraordinary that members opposite, including the member for Perth, are opposing this measure. This is an extraordinary display of hypocrisy. Labor took $105.8 million in savings out of the budget over three years, banked the savings, failed to make the legislative changes and is now opposing this measure. It is trying to wipe history. It is trying to lure the Australian people into thinking this never happened. But we do not forget. I reiterate just how important it is for the federal government to repair the budget and remove red tape and unnecessary regulation. The measures will boost confidence and help to improve productivity, which will help the people of Corangamite and the whole of Australia. I commend the bill to the House.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to speak to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013. I would like to start by responding to some of the unreasonable claims by the member for Corangamite. Firstly, the member for Corangamite would have you believe that there was not a global financial crisis. In reference to the deficit and the debt this country has, one must compare where we found ourselves in confronting the biggest economic challenge in the last 70 or more years with where we are now placed compared to comparable countries within the OECD.

I had the good fortune as the then minister for employment to attend the G20 in Russia earlier this year. From speaking to my counterparts in those countries, I learnt how they looked upon Australia and our response to the global financial crisis. They asked: 'How did you do it? How did you ensure that unemployment was so low? How did you ensure that your debt as a proportion of GDP was one-tenth of the mean average of OECD countries? How were you able to do that?'

So let us not have any misleading or misrepresentations by those opposite that we are in a difficult situation economically. Our economic fundamentals are fine. All we want to do is ensure that those now in government do not ruin them. But let us remember: we have low debt compared to the OECD average—one-tenth of the mean average of OECD countries; the second lowest unemployment rate; and 14 per cent economic growth since the global financial crisis. One of the fastest rates of economic growth in the world since the global financial crisis happened under the previous government. So, try as the former opposition might to pretend otherwise now they are in government, they have been left with the fundamentals of our economy in good shape.

I also want to pick up on a point made by the member for Corangamite in relation to the elevation of the Minister for Small Business to cabinet. I think that is a worthy thing. But, again, let us not have any rewriting of history here: it was the previous government that appointed the minister for small business to cabinet after years of that ministry not being in cabinet under the Howard government. Let us not have any misleading or misrepresentations by those opposite. I am glad to see that that portfolio and my good friend the Minister for Small Business are in cabinet, because of the importance of small business to our economy. There are more than two million small businesses in this country, who deserve proper representation around the most important table of government that we have in this country. So let me just put those matters on the record. You can speak from your government notes all you like, but try to keep it a little bit honest and a little bit real, I would suggest to the member for Corangamite.

In relation to the bill that is before us, there are some measures in it that the opposition and I do support because they are sensible measures and they have been considered. There are other measures that have been considered and they go to a number of areas. They are not sensible, they are not fair and they are not warranted, and I think, therefore, that the government should rethink inflicting some of these provisions on those in our community.

Let us just remember what we have seen already in this place, very recently, from this government. For example, under the attempt to repeal the minerals resource rent tax, there was a small provision in the bill to scrap the schoolkids bonus, affecting millions of families in this country who might be doing it a bit tough, particularly in buying things for school. Whether it is for books or school uniforms, $410 for a primary school student or $820 for a high school student is an important sum of money for families that are dealing with cost-of-living pressures. That is being scrapped by this government, which has no regard for the concerns of ordinary people, whether they live in Corangamite or elsewhere. I would like to know how the member for Corangamite will explain to her constituents why they will not be receiving the schoolkids bonus any longer, once this government repeals that very important measure. It meant $15,000 per student over the school years, so that will have a big impact on families in Corangamite and, indeed, in all electorates across our nation.

There are some other measures that we looked at that we are now concerned about because the basis on which we introduced them at the time was to fund the education reforms that we had put in place. We were looking at a measure in relation to the student start-up loans that was going to provide funding for Labor's Better Schools Plan. What we have seen in the last week is an embarrassing situation for this government. Firstly, this government has fundamentally repudiated its position before the election, turning its back on its commitments to the Australian people after the election. In the last week, we have seen a government that was in denial and then a government seeking to scramble its way out of trouble. But let us just recall what the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education said of this measure prior to the election. On 29 August this year, the minister said:

… you can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school …

On 2 August 2013, the Prime Minister said:

As far as I am concerned, as far as Christopher Pyne is concerned, as far as the Coalition is concerned, we want to end the uncertainty by guaranteeing that no school will be worse off …

A further quote from the Minister for Education in The Sydney Morning Herald on 16 August 2013 is:

… no school will be worse off, whether it is a Liberal or Labor government in the next term.

Well, we know what has happened since; this government has turned its back on that commitment. Despite the government's efforts, the embarrassing backflips, to cover up their dishonesty and mendacity, they are not in any way providing the resources they said they would provide to schools across the country. For example, the efforts to provide support to state governments come with no attachments—in other words, no conditions and, therefore, those governments may take the money out as the Commonwealth puts it in. The fact that there are no conditions attached to that funding means that those state governments need not provide resources to those schools and that we will not see the reforms that are required to ensure that our education system is improved. That is a very shameful thing but it is not surprising given the history of the political party that is now in government in relation to education.

I return to the provision I referred to earlier in relation to the bill. As I said, we have a concern about the way in which this provision operates. This provision will hurt students. It is not money that is going to be saved to provide to the education system. There is no basis upon which this measure should continue. For that reason, there will be some amendments to the bill in the other place to ensure that those who will be adversely affected by some of the measures in this bill can be protected against the government, who, as I have said, have shown such scant regard not only for their commitments made prior to the election but for the people who will be affected by this bill.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on one particular aspect of the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013—that is, the continuing income management as part of the Cape York Welfare Reform trial, which is a cost of $4.2 million over two years. This is one measure among a number of measures. I have a particular interest in this measure for two reasons. Firstly, I was intricately involved in helping to design the Cape York Welfare Reform trial as deputy director of Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute. I was there for several years when this was being designed and I helped to oversee the design. So I have a deep interest in seeing it progress and being implemented.

Secondly, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister my responsibilities now include Indigenous affairs. We are looking at all of the reform measures that have been implemented in Indigenous communities and assessing what has been working and what has not. For those who do not know, the Cape York Welfare Reform trial consists of a number of components, but the flagship component of the trial is the Families Responsibilities Commission. This consists of a number of parts. To start with, it consists of welfare payments being conditional upon a number of measures being met. If someone were to receive welfare payments in the four trial communities in Cape York where the Families Responsibilities Commission is in operation, they must send their child to school, they must look after their public house if they have one, they must keep their children free from neglect and they must remain free from trouble with the police.

If a person breaches one of those conditions, they will then be triggered to the Families Responsibilities Commission. David Glasgow, a retired magistrate, is chair of the commission. It also has local elders who sit alongside him. If, for example, a person has not sent their child to school, they can call that individual in front of the commission and those elders and the chairman can ask a person to improve their behaviours in that area. They can send that person off to get assistance for one or two things and, if that still does not work, they have the ability to income manage that person's welfare payments if they still are not doing the right thing having received a couple of warnings. This very innovative model is specifically aimed to address issues in such as school attendance and, importantly, to restore some Indigenous authority so that local elders can stand up and take responsibility for things going on in their communities. That has occurred through the Families Responsibilities Commission. This core component in the bill allows for the continuation of income management for a further two years.

We can assess the Cape York Welfare Reform trial by looking at the evaluation report from 2012. That report, which is a lengthy document, is quite instructive. The executive summary concludes by saying:

… the evaluation after only three years of the trial of welfare reform points to a level of progress that has rarely been evident in previous reform programs in Queensland’s remote Indigenous communities.

It is quite a powerful summation of how the welfare reform trial has been progressing. When they examine particular measures—for example, school attendance—they point to how a school such as Aurukun, which had one of the lowest school attendance rates in Queensland, has had considerable improvement. Indeed its school attendance rose from 46.1 per cent in the first term of 2008 to over 70 per cent in 2012. I believe it is now up to 76 per cent. They still have a long way to go to get school attendance up to 95 per cent but it shows a substantial improvement. The evaluation report puts that down to the operation of the Families Responsibilities Commission, which is the core flagship measure in the welfare reform trial.

It is worth noting that the then member for Longman and minister for Indigenous affairs Mal Brough was critical in getting the welfare reform trial up and running from the Commonwealth perspective. He should be thanked for his work. Also, successive Labor and Liberal Queensland governments supported the trial, as did the Labor government under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. The welfare reform trial in the cape is not without problems. The evaluation report goes through some of those issues and where progress has been made. Many people refer to the fact that it has been an expensive trial. Nevertheless, on the basis of the evaluation, the trials have been successful and there are many areas worth continuing at least for a couple of years. A recommendation in this bill is to continue income management support mechanisms which support the operations of the Families Responsibilities Commission. Passing this measure will enable the operation of the Families Responsibilities Commission to continue for another two years. I think that is a very worthwhile initiative.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 does many things and many of those things are very bad. I just want to focus in my contribution on two of those. One concerns gambling. About this time last year I was able to stand up in this chamber and speak in favour of the National Gambling Reform Bill. That was flawed legislation. It did not go nearly far enough in fighting the harm that pokies cause in our communities. It was clearly the result of a process that was hopelessly compromised by special interests. The gambling lobby's voice was loud and the voice of those whose lives had been ruined by poker machines was muted. However, the bill made some modest reforms and represented progress. It set the precedent of bringing the industry under Commonwealth regulation for the first time.

Simple measures such as limits on ATM withdrawals at pokies' venues have real potential to slow down the losses of problem gamblers. The linking of poker machines and the fitting of precommitment technology opened the door for mandatory precommitment to be switched on in the future. And the creation of a national regulator provides a framework for future, more meaningful reform.

Now, we are only days into the government's legislative agenda and here we find the misleadingly-named Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. It would be better called the 'Poker Machine Industry Christmas Present Bill' because it is a pure gift to the gambling industry. I would personally be very surprised if the industry did not have a direct hand in drafting this bill. It winds back every substantial reform that was achieved, after such a struggle last year. The national regulator—gone! ATM withdrawal limits—gone! Fitting machines with precommitment technology and networking them together—gone! This bill replaces hundreds of pages of careful regulation with a single motherhood statement about working with the states on voluntary precommitment.

I challenge any member of this House to bring up the issue of pokies with their constituents. Pokies are a blight on Australia. People know it and they will tell you so. Wherever there is disadvantage and social exclusion the pokies are to be found in abundance. They suck money out of the communities that cannot afford it. They draw parents away from families. They are designed to be addictive and they are. Addiction destroys lives, but it also raises revenue. The clubs and hotels that host the poker machines are themselves addicted to that revenue and they want it, no matter what the cost to the community.

Problem gambling is a serious issue in this country. Australians are amongst the world's most prolific gamblers. Billions go through poker machines every year and it is estimated that 40 per cent of it comes from problem gamblers who can ill-afford the losses that they are incurring. The Productivity Commission estimated the social costs of problem gambling to be at least $4.7 billion a year nationally. A recent report estimated the social and economic costs in Victoria—my state—were between $1.5 billion and $2.8 billion in 2010-11. I would suggest that those numbers really do not capture the harms of family disintegration, of people who turn to crime to feed their addiction or of people who commit suicide.

So I ask the House: how does it serve the community to unwind even the modest reforms that we were able to put in place last year? Who benefits if poker machines are, once again, free of any constraints on who can play and for how long? Who benefits if venues are free to remove ATM limits? It is not the people of Melbourne. It is not the people in the community who voted for all of us here. They do not benefit from poker machines that can take more of their money faster and without limits.

The pokies lobby waged a ferocious campaign against reform by the last government. It was based on scaremongering, exaggerated claims and outright lies by the dozen. I regret to say they were largely successful in scuttling meaningful reform. But they are never satisfied. And, with such a good friend now in The Lodge, who can blame them? This bill gives them all they could ask for and more, and it completely sidelines our civil society who were so engaged in this issue.

Last year's reforms were hard won. They came at the end of a long and detailed national debate. They required careful consultation with the Greens and my colleagues on the crossbenches. Clubs, manufacturers, churches, gambling reform activists and individuals who had suffered from addiction all had a say in the debate. Although the end result was far short of where it should have been, Australians knew their parliament was tackling the problem of pokies harm.

But what about the bill before us? To whom did the government flag this major change? Who knew this was coming, hidden as it is in an innocuous-sounding omnibus bill? This can only be described as a transparent attempt to sweep a major reform under the rug, perhaps to get it done in the rush before Christmas and in the hope that no-one notices.

If the government are truly proud of this change, this sop to industry, then let them come out and announce it. Let them stand there alongside the pokies lobby and proudly announce that they are winding back every step that was taken towards putting some checks and balances on poker machines. Let them face affected members of the community and people in their own electorates who have suffered as a result of the unchecked proliferation of minicasinos throughout the country.

The Greens are proud to stand for tougher action on pokies because they affect people's lives and hurt our communities. For that reason alone, we will be voting against this bill. If the government are proud to take such a stand against pokies reform, if they want more pokies taking more money, more quickly, from our poorest communities, then they should at least have the guts to come out and say it.

But it is not just that that one finds in this bill. The second area that I want to pay attention to is the scrapping of the Student Start-up Scholarship—student start-up loans—and the significant impact that that will have on people's ability to attend university.

The National Tertiary Education Union has made the point that these changes will impact most significantly on students from disadvantaged backgrounds. By definition, the only students eligible to convert student start-up scholarships to loans are those eligible for some form of student income support in the form of youth allowance, Austudy or Abstudy and are already financially disadvantaged.

As I said yesterday in this place, my father was lucky enough to be able to go to university because there was no financial barrier to him doing that. That was significant because he came from a family where his dad worked in the post office all his life and his mum did not earn a wage. My dad was able to go to university because there were no financial barriers in place. It was possible for someone from a working-class background to go to university and know that they were not going to face crippling debt and that the fees were not so high that it was a barrier to them entering. That is a crucial part of Australian society that we should defend. Everyone should have the right to go to university no matter how much they earn and the public, if they believe that, should have a role in supporting people to go there.

What we know is that people are in crippling debt. There are an enormous number of students in my electorate at the moment who are facing the kinds of challenges that not even I faced when I went to university. The cost of renting in inner city Melbourne can be more than the amount of your youth allowance alone. People are already working 15, 20, 30 and sometimes 35 hours a week just to make ends meet and they are reliant on government support. On top of that, many people are graduating from their degrees with something akin to a small-sized mortgage and it is no wonder that, while they are at university, the personal debts in which they find themselves in order to make ends meet are growing and growing. So we should be doing everything we possibly can to stop students falling further into debt and to relieve the pressure on students, not taking the measures that this bill takes.

There are a number of other objectionable measures in this bill and my colleagues will deal with those when the bill proceeds to the other place. But, as this bill is one nicely giftwrapped present to the pokies industry just before Christmas, I and the Greens will not be supporting it.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013. In the short time available, I would like to concentrate on one particular aspect of this bill which eases the burden on small business.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad to see our very effective and efficient Minister for Small Business in the chamber. I am glad that we have a small-business minister in cabinet and that we have had one small-business minister in place for a considerable period of time doing a very good job, unlike the previous government, where we saw a revolving door of small-business ministers.

A very important thing that this bill does is ease the administrative burden on small business. The paid parental leave legislation will be amended to ensure that, from 1 March next year, employees will be paid directly by the Department of Human Services unless an employer opts to provide paid parental leave to its employees directly. This removes some of the red tape from our small-business sector. It is a small step but a small step on a long road that we must take.

If we look at the financial mess that the nation is in, with the debt mountain that we must now repay, the interest alone is close to $800 million every month. That is $800 million our nation must find to pay the interest only on the debt legacy that the previous Labor government has left this nation. That is why small business is so important, as it has been throughout our history. It is small business that creates the jobs. It is small business that creates the new innovations and enables our society to progress and grow that prosperity.

In looking at what we need to do in the years to come during this government's term and future terms, we come to the 'forgotten people' speech by Sir Robert Menzies, made on 22 May 1942. To put that speech in some historical context, it was made only a few weeks after the Battle of the Coral Sea and before the Battle of Midway, so the eventual outcome of the Second World War was at that time unknown. Menzies had the vision in that speech to set forward the important goals for the future of Australia. He finished the speech with these words:

…what really happens to us will depend on how many people we have who are of the great and sober and dynamic middle-class—the strivers, the planners, the ambitious ones. We shall destroy them at our peril.

It is interesting, therefore, to look at how many were destroyed during the previous, Labor government. I will give just a few numbers to show the damage that this previous Labor government did to our small-business sector.

After the Labor government left office, despite the population growing substantially over that period and the economy still ticking over, there were 3,000 fewer small businesses employing people. Three thousand small businesses had actually vacated the economy and were no longer employing people. That equated to the incredible number of 412,000 fewer people being employed in the small business sector. That means that 412,000 fewer Australians were being employed in the small business sector than when that government took over. We have seen the small business sector of the community contracting. Their share of employment has decreased. Before the previous government came to office, the small business sector created 53 per cent of our nation's jobs. After just six years of reckless policies and indifference to small business, we saw that collapse to 43 per cent. These are trends that we must reverse. This bill is a small start in doing that.

What we want is for people who operate small businesses—who often work a 10-, 12-, 14- or 16-hour day, or longer—to spend their remaining time after coming home to think about more innovations for their businesses, to think about how they can improve their businesses and to think about what experimentation they can do to make their businesses more competitive, more efficient and more productive. But what the previous Labor government did was strangle them with red tape. That meant that when a person who operates a small business came home after their long day the previous Labor government wanted to give them more red tape. They said: 'Here you go, now you have to fill out your employees' paperwork for the Paid Parental Leave scheme. You will not only be an unpaid tax collector for the nation but an unpaid administrator of the Paid Parental Leave scheme.' The coalition has said that this is a detrimental policy.

That is why what we are introducing in this bill reverses that. It removes that red tape, it removes that burden off that owner of a small business. That person often puts their home and their life savings at risk to create employment for others. This bill takes that burden off their backs and enables government to administer the Paid Parental Leave scheme. It is a small step but it is an important small step for this parliament.

The other issue that this bill deals with is encouraging responsible gambling. There are some in this House on the crossbenches that have a particular concern with the issue of problem gambling, and rightly so. Problem gambling is an issue in our society. But the methods put in by the previous government were nothing more than a fig leaf. We saw the member for Denison, who I note was in the chamber, come up with proposals. He believed that he had a signed agreement for his support for the previous government. That was ripped up, thrown away, discarded. We saw things brought in by the previous Labor government that simply did not work to affect the issue of problem gambling.

There was a trial of mandatory precommitment in the ACT. That was a complete farce. How can you have a trial of mandatory precommitment in the ACT when a punter or someone who is interested in gambling can simply go across the border to Queanbeyan where it does not apply? This is why it is best to repeal Labor's measures, which were simply a fig leaf that did nothing about the issue of problem gambling, and start again from a blank page.

When we start with that blank page, we need to recognise a few basic points. One is that many people in our society get pleasure from the recreational activity of gambling. We cannot condemn all these people. Who are we to say that the activities of someone who enjoys having a bet on a poker machine or at the horse or dog races are less socially desirable than the activities of someone who collects stamps or who enjoys spending their time knitting? We must recognise that it is a legitimate activity.

In recognising that there are also problem gamblers, we need to look at the problems caused by the internet. Today, almost everyone has a mobile casino in their pockets. Anyone walking around with an iPhone can simply pull their iPhone out of their pocket and gamble online. These are the challenges and the issues that we must tackle in this next parliament.

We also need to consider that the restrictions that we are putting on the gambling industry to do with the number of poker machines can be counterproductive. They can increase the margin, for it is the rate of return to player that ultimately makes a poker machine something that a problem gambler can lose a lot of money on. We need to look at issues of competition. Could it be that, if there were more competition between clubs and pubs in the rate of return to players, that would lift that rate of return and that might be the best way of reducing problem gambling?

I will not delay the House longer. I know that there are other members who wish to speak on this bill. There are many important points in this bill. It starts to clean up the mess, which is what the coalition must do during this term of government. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is wide-ranging legislation. It contains many provisions that will significantly and in many cases disproportionately impact on constituents in the electorate of Scullin, perhaps those measures relating to Cape York being notable exceptions. I say at the outset that Labor will always support prudent savings measures; it always has. We recognise that the resources of the state are finite. We are lending our support to a number of measures contained in this legislation. We should not and we will not hide from the hard work of making distributional decisions to ensure that resources are allocated on the basis of need and to achieve wider social goals, most particularly in the context of this legislation and perhaps some of its predecessors, support for Better Schools and support for the Early Years Quality Fund.

The tenor of the second reading speech in relation to the social security aspects of this legislation was pretty interesting. It was absent a sense of purpose. It effectively talked of savings for savings' sake or perhaps cuts for cuts' sake. Not all of the measures contained in the legislation are sensible or still reflect those wider resource allocation priorities and wider social goals. We see in this legislation significant threats to equity, which are troubling to me and troubling to many constituents of the Scullin electorate.

I notice the member for Jagajaga has foreshadowed that Labor will move to omit those measures from this legislation, including those relating to student start-up loans and the extension of the annual child-care rebate limit, which would make unfair and unwarranted cuts at a cost to Australian students and families. An amendment has also been foreshadowed, as I understand it, in the other place to limit the application of changes to the government's paid parental leave, in line with Labor's policy. In the limited time available to me and recognising that this legislation deals with many things, as the member for Melbourne said, I will focus my contribution on a couple of aspects of the legislation: those proposals in relation to the child-care rebate indexation, and in relation to paid parental leave. I will also briefly touch upon treatment of the student start-up loans.

Labor has always been a strong supporter of increased support to Australian families, especially all of those struggling to meet the costs of child care. Labor, when in government, increased the child-care rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent. This government, on the other hand, has admitted it is planning to freeze the child-care rebate gap until 2017. This is a broken promise from a government that told us before the election there would be no broken promises and no surprises. It compounds the government's plans to walk away from $300 million for low-paid early-childhood educators—critical providers of child care. This makes an absolute mockery of any claims that this government wants to make child care more affordable to families and, more generally, of its interest in meeting the great productivity challenge of boosting workforce participation, to which affordable, available and quality child care is absolutely critical. It also completely undermines the government's review of child care.

The actions of this government, in this respect—as in so many others—speak far louder than its words, particularly those words spoken before 7 September. I think of the comment, said in May of this year, of the now minister for families about the rebate's indexed changes being something that would hurt families. These are actions which will push up child-care costs for Australian families already struggling to make ends meet. I cannot see how this government can justify freezing indexation when it has repeatedly argued that it would have a devastating impact on families if it did not implement the Early Years Quality Fund. It is a cut without any trade-off.

I turn now to the issue of paid parental leave and the changes. I am very proud that Labor, through the member for Jagajaga, introduced Australia's first Paid Parental Leave scheme—a fair scheme, it is very important to note. This is particularly relevant in the present context, as the House considers provisions that will increase the financial burden on Australians of very limited financial means. Now is a good time to once again raise this fundamental question of fairness in the allocation of finite resources of the state according to need and the broader social purpose. The scheme introduced by Labor was designed to be simple for business and the recent evaluation found that most employers have found their role straightforward and easy and that compliance costs have been minimal. Labor has been listening to small business—and I am very pleased that the minister is here to do some more listening on this point—as has the Productivity Commission, in formulating our initial response and making sure that the scheme continues to work most effectively and deliver on its promise. That is why Labor announced during the recent election campaign that it would adopt a policy that would enable businesses employing fewer than 20 employees to effectively streamline the administration of this scheme. It was a balanced response; it was a proportionate response. Under this policy, small businesses would be able to have Centrelink make PPL payments to their employees whilst on parental leave.

The critical difference between this and what is before the House is that this reform would maintain the important, I would even say fundamental, connection between a worker and their employer while they are on leave, while achieving the often stated aim of this government of cutting red tape for small businesses that need it the most. It is about balance, and Labor's policy got the balance right. We should not be abolishing the role of the employer in administering paid parental leave. This is very much the thin end of a very difficult wedge. This would abolish the relationship between an employee and their workplace for the period of their leave. The coalition is very fond of speaking of paid parental leave as a workplace entitlement in contrast to a welfare payment, but this turns that proposition squarely on its head.

The employer role is such a vital part of the Paid Parental Leave scheme, especially for small businesses, given the nature of the relationships they often contain. The employer role creates that fundamental link between employers and staff who take time off work. It is so important that, through this time off, staff retention rates can be a factor in the relationship being worked through directly. While the employer is on leave, the connection can take place. Conversations can continue. These are very significant events in an employer's life, when the employer will be one of few for the relevant business, and they can carry on. Retention and the workplace relationship would be enhanced by maintaining this vital relationship.

Our policy position affirms that taking leave from work around the time of birth is business as usual. It should be now accepted as a part of life, a common part of work and family life. It is vital in maximising work and family arrangements and allows employers and employees to agree on the many and varied ways that complement the PPL scheme, that build cooperative and dynamic workplaces. Fundamentally, Labor's approach to this PPL scheme and its application to small business supports and reinforces workplaces that are cooperative and fair and boosts workplace participation. Labor understood before the election—and understands now—the need to balance these competing, although not irreconcilable, differences with the needs of small businesses. The evidence that Labor got the balance right is already before us in the evaluation, but perhaps more profoundly in the lived experience, for around 300,000 women and 37,000-odd men and others who have received dad and partner pay—also in the lived experience of their new families and of their employers, who are reaping and would continue to reap the benefit. This legislation does not get the balance right. It is something that needs to be attended to.

I turn briefly to the question of student start-up loans and acknowledge that converting student start-up scholarships to loans was an initiative contained in the 2013 budget. Of course, it was a measure with a purpose: to fund Labor's Better Schools Plan to deliver equity in education. The coalition said, as we have heard in this place many times in recent days, that they were on a 'unity ticket' with the Labor Party on schools funding. That is now clearly not the case. The government has refused to commit the nearly $15 billion in additional funding for schools. We have also had no assurance that states will not cut schools funding. The coalition disparaged those cuts in government and are now embracing them without any sign that those funds will be hypothecated for education. By converting the start-up scholarships to loans and through other measures that have already been discussed in this place, the coalition is seeking to cut $2.3 billion from higher education.

The Student Start-Up Scholarship was a Labor initiative to assist students with the upfront costs of study such as textbooks and specialised equipment. It was an initiative that had been sorely lacking and provided a real incentive to meaningful participation in higher education for many. They went hand in hand, of course, with many other Labor initiatives to help end inequity in our higher education system. I am proud of Labor's record in removing barriers to education and our very strong record of investing in higher education, but this is a second-rate deal for school students from a government that has broken its promises on education, and it remains potentially a very significant deterrent to equity being fulfilled in higher education. I am deeply concerned about its impact on students from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly many in Scullin who aspire to take up their place in higher education.

This government, it is clear, is stacked with adherents to David Cameron's Big Society agenda, which is, of course, just a nice-sounding way of planning to cut services and, more broadly, the social safety net. First amongst them is, of course, Minister Andrews. The notion is that society will somehow—although precisely how is never explained—pick up the slack and no-one will be worse off, regardless of changes to the state's provision of welfare. But, as people in the United Kingdom now know after a Conservative recession they did not have to have, the Big Society is simply a big con. It did not work there and it will not work here.

Elements of this legislation—those elements that are opposed by Labor—may fairly be seen as a step in the direction that has failed in the United Kingdom: savings for savings' sake, cuts for cuts' sake, a retreat from any concern for fairness and equity. People in Scullin will be disadvantaged by these unfair cuts if this legislation is passed unamended.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 and I note at the outset that this is a bill which contains a very large number of changes and amendments, most of which are unrelated. They do relate in some part to social security, to welfare, to families and to small business and cut across a whole range of services. These are services that are provided not only to individuals but to families and small businesses and that have a very large impact on the way that families will have future benefit from a range of government services, as would individuals, students and small businesses and the way that these services are administered. Labor has made it clear that, unlike the government in opposition, we are not going to be oppositionalist. We will support good changes where they have a benefit to the community. We will very much support changes to small business areas where they are of benefit. We will support the government where there is a need for those changes, particularly where Labor in government were already making those changes or moving down that path. We certainly will not support changes which hurt families, hurt small business, hurt individuals, hurt students, diminish the capacity of families to provide for their young students or in any other material way do not benefit the community—do not have a benefit to the people they are intended to support.

There is an enormous difference between the way we will act and the way this government acted in opposition: opposition just for opposition's sake. You will not find that from us, and it will be demonstrated through these bills today. We will support the good elements of these bills because we believe that, where there is good being done, it should be supported. But we also believe that, where there needs to be amendments, oppositions should play their part and should do a good job of it. A good democracy, it is often said, works best when you have a strong government and a strong opposition. It does not work when one side is not operating as they ought to be.

This bill contains many measures, and I want to run briefly through what those measures are and then what our positions are on those particular changes. As I said at the start, this bill contains a very large number of mostly unrelated measures which include continuing income management as part of the Cape York welfare reform. The bill amends the Social Security Act 1999 to enable a two-year continuation of income management as part of the continuation of the Cape York welfare reform. It also contains a number of family tax benefit part A eligibility rules, particularly in terms of the eligibility for family tax benefit for children age 16 years and over. Currently, the FBTA can be paid for children age 16 to 17 years who are undertaking or have completed secondary study and dependant full-time secondary students until the calendar year when they turn 19. These amendments limit eligibility for family tax benefit part A to families with children age 16 to 19 years. There are also a number of exemptions that apply to children who cannot work. The schedule also removes the child cut-out amount or income limit.

There are also changes to the period of Australian working life residence. As a result of the measures contained in this bill, from 1 January next year age pensioners and certain other pensioners with unlimited portability will be required to have been Australian residents for 35 years during their working life from the age of 16 to pension age to receive their full, means tested pension after 26 weeks absence from Australia. The current requirement is for 25 years. This will not apply, of course, to agreements outside of Australia that we have with Greece and New Zealand. Pensioners who are living overseas immediately before 1 January will continue to be paid under the current 25-year rule.

This also contains a number of interest changes to apply to certain welfare debts—in particular, how this applies to Austudy payments, fares allowance, youth allowance payments to full-time students and apprentices, ABSTUDY living allowance payments and right across a range of those payments. The rate of the interest charge will be based upon the 90-day bank accepted bill rate plus an additional seven per cent, as is currently applied by the Australian Taxation Office for other debts in this area. In the last four years, this rate has averaged 11.07 per cent and currently stands at 9.6 per cent. These are significant changes which will have a deep impact.

There are also significant changes to the Pension Bonus Scheme. From 1 March 2014 the bill will end late registrations for the closed Pension Bonus Scheme. The scheme provides a lump sum payment to people who have qualified for the age pension, the age service pension or the partner service pension after reaching pension age or qualifying for the income support supplement. This will also have a marked impact.

There are also changes to the extension of indexation pauses for family tax benefit A, family tax benefit B and family tax benefit supplements. The bill will extend the indexation pauses on certain higher income limits for three further years, until 30 June. This limits the amount of growth that people would have otherwise had in this area. This will apply to the family tax benefit part B primary earner income limit. As you can see, these are significant changes.

There are a range of changes to the rules for receiving payments from overseas, and deeming rules will be extended to account based income streams. The bill will align the income test treatment of account based superannuation income streams for products assessed from 1 January 2015, with the deemed income rules applying to other financial assets. It will change the way that government accounts for the purposes of being eligible for the age pension—how other assets are counted. There are a range of other amendments that go to debt recovery, certain provisions for lodging tax returns, and funding under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, regarding a person's account.

While the Labor Party will support elements of these bills, because we believe they are a step in the right direction and they provide some enhancements, there are a range of areas that are of great concern. Labor will always support sensible savings measures, because that is what we did in government and that is what we would expect the new government to do. We will be lending our support to a number of the measures in the legislation, but not all the measures in this legislation are sensible. Where we believe they are not sensible, we will move to omit those measures and we will oppose those on the basis that they are not sensible, on the basis that they do not provide for families, individuals or small business or where we believe the measures make unwarranted and unfair cuts at a cost, particularly to Australian students and their families.

I will quickly deal with a range of issues contained in here which I think are very important, particularly paid parental leave changes. I note for the record that it was Labor that introduced the first Paid Parental Leave scheme, which has been upheld in high regard right across the community and has served an enormous benefit. It has already benefited some 300,000 women who have accessed the Paid Parental Leave scheme that Labor introduced since January 2011. In fact, so successful has this policy been that we saw the opposition, now the government, extend it much further, to a level we believe is unwarranted, but that is a debate for another time.

What we did in our policy in the lead-up to the last election was very much understand and hear the voice of small business in this area, particularly small businesses with 20 employees or fewer. There would be a benefit if they had an option to not administer the Paid Parental Leave scheme themselves but to have that done by Centrelink. We think that is a good idea. That was our policy and we continue to have that policy. In here there are a number of changes in that particular area that we cannot support.

When it comes to the things that are contained in this bill, it is important to note that there are a whole range of issues for small business. This is not some single dimension or single-layer set of changes for families, in terms of how they are supported through their children attending higher education, or whether it is just the education system itself, or support through family tax benefit A or B—measures that are in place to provide cost-of-living relief to parents, cost-of-living relief to families and relief from cost-of-living pressures on individuals. It is very much needed support that Labor in some cases introduced but in a lot of cases enhanced. Labor is very cognisant of the way that this support interacts with the tax system and the further benefit to the whole community by helping to further educate young people so that they can provide not only for themselves and their families but also to the greater good of the economy.

Some of the support that was directly laid out under a Labor government was the instant asset write-off—a very much appreciated and applauded measure that Labor put in place which allowed a small business to write off for taxable purposes a proportion of the value of an asset that cost less than 6½ thousand dollars. This was widely used, to the tune of almost $3 billion, as the cost to the taxpayer, but it derived enormous benefit to small business. It helped them deal with cost-of-living increases, the cost of utilities and a whole range of other things. It helped them in a very difficult period over the past five years, coming out of a global depression, a global recession, a global financial crisis, and helped them deal with the fallout domestically in Australia. We saw the very good benefit of that. This government, unfortunately, will be penalising small business and taking that away. The government makes no secret of it and the government does not run away from that, but it ought to be held to account. Whatever other good they say they are doing—even if it is, as they say, a reduction in red tape—they have still taken away the most direct piece of assistance that Labor put in place for small business. It was a little bit over $5 billion worth of assistance in totality, if we look right across the board. The instant asset write-off was an uncapped, unlimited, $6½ thousand direct bonus for small business. That is now gone and I cannot see a time when a Liberal government will reinstitute making a direct payment to small business to help them deal with the pressures of doing business.

We do understand small business. We understand small business directly. We understand that, if you are going to be more than just a mouthpiece for small business, talking the talk and spruiking the rhetoric, you actually have to put some money on the table as well. One of the best ways you can do that is by providing direct assistance to help them help themselves. Where they buy assets, where they invest in their own business, government should be there to lend them a hand—a hand up, not a handout.

In the run-up to the election, our policy was to move from the $6½ thousand in assistance to small business that we put in place—up from the $1,000 that was there under the previous Liberal government—to $10,000. That will now be wound back to just $1,000 again. That is an enormous hit to small business and, in my book, it does not sound like the government understands or is listening to small business. It is not us saying this. It is the small business representative bodies, the Australian Industry Group and a whole range of people—the voices of small business right across the board. Dr Peter Byrne from AIG said that the instant asset write-off reduces costs for small business and the amount they have to pay to their accountants. I could go on for quite some time about the benefits the instant asset write-off has brought to small business.

I also note the loss carry-back. This Labor initiative meant that, for the first time in Australia's history, businesses could retrospectively apply a current loss to regain tax they had paid in the past. This was of enormous benefit to small businesses in allowing them to arrange their expenditures and cash flows in order to be able to make a claim, up to the value of a million dollars, against taxes paid in the past. This was not just about a business making a loss but was also about how a business was then able to take account of this benefit—perhaps arranging asset purchases or other financial decisions in order to maximise the benefit to their current financial position. This is another example of Labor not only listening to small business but delivering for small business. This benefit will be taken away by this government.

I cannot go through all the details—there is just so much in this bill—but this bill does damage to students and makes things harder for them, it makes changes to family tax benefit A and family tax benefit B, and it makes life a little bit more difficult for families and for small business. There are elements of this bill that we believe are good, but there are elements we cannot support. (Time expired)

Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a number of concerns with the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, one of which is the diversity of the bill. I think it would be more appropriate, when there are a number of controversial issues to be decided in this place, to split them into separate bills. I spoke yesterday at some length about my concerns with the current government's attack on the universities. I will not repeat those comments but I would like to associate them with this bill as well.

Today I will use my limited time to focus on another area in the bill of great concern to me—this government's determination to wind back the modest poker machine reforms of the 43rd Parliament. Why the new government would do this escapes me, quite frankly. The scope of the poker machine problem in this country is by now well remarked upon and at least one thing this government will not be able to destroy is that the 43rd Parliament shone more light on the issue of poker machine problem gambling. We have helped to take away a little bit of the stigma of it. More people are now seeking help and poker machine revenue nationally is down markedly. That is a positive step and not something the new government can overcome.

I will just recap. The 2010 Productivity Commission report into gambling in this country, the second major report by the commission, revealed a number of quite dramatic statistics. For example, it revealed that something like 95,000 Australians have a problem with poker machines. They lose much more than they can afford to lose. Those 95,000 people are, between them, losing something like $5,000 million a year on the pokies. From other sources we have learned that something like 15 per cent of Australians who gamble weekly have a gambling problem and that something like another 15 per cent of people who gamble weekly on the pokies are at risk of becoming problem gamblers. In other words, almost a third of the people who are playing the pokies weekly either have a serious problem or are at risk of developing a serious problem with the machines.

There is some good research out of Tasmania which shows that, for every problem gambler, between five and 10 people are affected. These are mums, dads, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, work colleagues, people they manage, bosses, friends—any number of people. When you add all this up, the number of people adversely affected by poker machines in Australia is well over 1 million. Surely that is more than enough people to make any government determined to take strong and decisive action and finally do something about it.

The human face of this is remarkable. I would like to think that every member of parliament would sit down from time to time with people who are concerned with the scourge of poker machines, would sit down with people who are affected by poker machines and would listen to the stories—would hear at least some of the stories that I have heard as an outspoken advocate for reform. They should hear, for example, from the people who have gone to jail. Good research out of Victoria shows that problem gambling, predominantly from the pokies, is the second most prevalent cause of crime in that state, second only to drug abuse.

They should hear stories like the one I heard some time ago about a family in my electorate. After repeated attempts by Aurora to put them on repayment plans, they finally had their power cut off. What became of that family? What became of those children? What did they do for a hot meal? What did they do for a hot shower? What did they do for lights at night?

No doubt those children would be some of the ones who take advantage of the public school breakfast programs that need to be run in my electorate and in any number of electorates.

A couple introduced themselves to me some time ago and they had been bankrupted by a dishonest employee. The employee had taken so much money out of the till over a period of years that ultimately it was the main reason for that business going broke, for the owners being bankrupted and for them losing everything. I am pleased to report that eventually they did get back on their feet. There are stories of suicides. It is unsurprising that the rate of suicide amongst problem gamblers is markedly higher than it is for the rest of the community. There are a thousand stories. I could stand here all day and all night and I would not run out of stories to tell. Some of them would sound very familiar to people in this place.

Why, when the problem is so big and affects so many people so brutally, would this government want to overturn the modest reforms of the 43rd Parliament? The reason escapes me. It is not like they do not have public opinion on their side. Poker machine reform was such a hot topic in the 43rd Parliament that it prompted a number of researchers and media outlets to commission a number of polls. Over time, right around the country, the polls consistently showed that a clear majority of Australians wanted strong and decisive poker machine reform. If anything is remarkable it is that there was not stronger reform in the 43rd Parliament, and now it is surprising that the new government wants to wind back even those modest reforms that were made.

I almost got myself into a bit of strife yesterday when asking a question of the Prime Minister. The gist of it was how is it that so many avowed Christians can seem so uncaring when it comes to gambling reform. I think it was a fair question to ask. To pitch it in a slightly different way, how is it that people who claim to be compassionate, who claim that they stand up for a fair deal, a fair go and want to help the battler, be so uncaring when it comes to gambling reform? How can people who came into this chamber this morning and bowed their heads and joined in the Lord's Prayer then be so uncaring when it comes to gambling reform? If Jesus Christ were sitting in the chamber now, what would he say about poker machines in Australia? What would he do if he were in this place? I am sure he would take a much more compassionate approach. I am sure he would not be a party to overturning the modest poker machine reforms of the 43rd Parliament. Frankly, I find the piousness and the sanctimonious behaviour—the handwringing, the bowed heads—hypocritical when those people are then not prepared to take strong, decisive action to help so many Australians who are often some of the most disadvantaged and lowest paid people in the land.

I note that yesterday the Prime Minister recommitted the government to working collaboratively with the states to put in place voluntary precommitment. The problem with that approach is that there is an abundance of research which shows unambiguously that voluntary precommitment does not work. The government is quick to criticise and to say that mandatory precommitment and $1 maximum bets on poker machines—pushed by me and many others—do not work and there is no research. That is baloney. There is an abundance of research that shows that $1 maximum bets and mandatory precommitment, where people must set a binding limit and the system locks them out for the rest of the day when they reach that limit, work. Similarly, there is an abundance of evidence to show that the government's course of action, voluntary precommitment only, does not work.

The government is not wanting to shine a light on or say too much about the fact that it is overturning a crucial part of the 43rd Parliament's reform—section 33 of the act from that parliament, which requires the voluntary precommitment system to, in essence, be capable of mandatory precommitment at the flick of a switch. This government knows, and the industry knows, that that was the crucial part of the reform passed by the previous parliament. By rolling out a voluntary system that was capable of mandatory precommitment at the flick of a switch, a future federal, state or territory government would then have the option to flick the switch and the industry would have no excuses about it not working or being too expensive. That is at the heart of what this government is doing—ensuring that in the future machines will not be capable of mandatory precommitment. While this government might have an interest in voluntary precommitment, it is actually an interest in a completely worthless technology, a completely worthless reform. This government knows that making the system mandatory precommitment or mandatory precommitment ready, which is what the act requires, was the crucial part of the reform.

Too many people in this place have been bought off by the poker machine industry, with players in the poker machine industry handing over $100,000, a couple of hundred thousand dollars or $1 million over time. Yes it is a political donation, yes it is declared and yes it seems clean under our regulatory framework, but, quite frankly, by my moral framework it is as much a corruption of good governance as a bagful of cash being handed over at the back of the building in the dark of night.

You know, in the few months after the 2010 federal election, the Australian Hotels Association and ClubsNSW donated $1.3 million to the Labor and Liberal parties—most of it, in fact, to the Liberal Party. There was no altruism about that. It was not a generous gift to help a buddy out. It was an investment—an investment which today is paying dividends. Jamie Packer handed over a couple of hundred thousand dollars to Katter's Australian Party when this parliament was considering poker machine reforms. No-one hands over that sort of money without an expectation of—an unsaid demand for—a return on that investment. Well, it seems the industry has made some pretty good investments, and we are seeing it being returned today by the determination of this new government to overturn the very modest poker machine reforms of the 43rd Parliament.

I will not mince my words. The poker machine industry is every bit as fundamentally cruel and corrupt as anything you can imagine. It lives off the misery of problem gamblers. Five billion dollars out of the $9 billion lost in this country comes from problem gamblers. It is the cream on the top. It is the big fat profit the industry makes. The industry figures it cannot afford not to have problem gamblers. It is like a Ponzi scheme because, as people take their own lives or lose all their money or perhaps, fortunately, get over their gambling problem and come out one end, the monster has to be fed. It is a Ponzi scheme. The poker machine industry needs to recruit new problem gamblers every day to keep feeding the monster. That is the only way the poker machine industry continues to function.

It is no wonder that the industry makes machines that are so addictive. The founder of Aristocrat, the big Australian company that makes poker machines and exports them globally, once said that the secret of Aristocrat's success was that it learned to make a better mousetrap. Doesn't that give the game of what the industry is up to away? In 2009, the former head of ClubsNSW, when talking about political fundraising, said:

There was absolutely the view that supporting fundraising helped our ability to influence people … We did support political party fundraising, which was a legitimate activity, and it certainly assisted us in gaining access …

Well, hasn't it helped to gain access today! This new government is so determined to overturn the modest poker machine reforms of the 43rd Parliament. I can only hope that when this goes to the Senate there will be enough people of good heart, and in the next Senate there will be enough people of goodwill up there to stop this part of this bill—people like Family First, the DLP, Nick Xenophon and others. Maybe the Palmer United Party will also stand in the way, because the onus is now on the Senate to stop this. This is an inequitable and ill considered part of the bill by the new government, and it is a completely meaningless gesture which will not work when it comes to a pursuit of voluntary precommitment.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill introduces several measures affecting the Social Services portfolio. One key measure delivers the first stage of the government's commitment to a different approach in addressing problem gambling. Our new direction will provide meaningful and measurable support for problem gamblers and reduce bureaucracy and duplication of functions between the Australian government and state and territory governments in this important area. Most Australians who gamble do so responsibly, but gambling is a major problem for some people and effective measures are needed to help these people. The bill will repeal the position and functions of the National Gambling Regulator, along with those provisions relating to the supervisory and gaming machine regulation levies, the automatic teller machine withdrawal limit, dynamic warnings, the trial on mandatory precommitment and matters for Productivity Commission review. The bill will also amend the precommitment and gaming machine capability provisions to express clearly the government's commitment to the development and implementation of these measures in the near future, informed fully by consultations with industry, state and territory governments and other stakeholders.

In a further step towards reducing bureaucracy, and especially to ease administrative burdens on business, the paid parental leave legislation will be amended to remove the requirement for employers to provide government funded parental leave pay to their eligible long-term employees. From 1 March 2014, employees will be paid directly by the Department of Human Services, unless an employer opts in to provide parental leave pay to its employees and an employee agrees for their employer to pay them.

The bill will also continue income management as a key element of Cape York Welfare Reform, as part of a two-year continuation of the initiative until 31 December 2015. Cape York Welfare Reform is a partnership between the Australian government, the Queensland government and the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. It aims to restore local Indigenous authority, rebuild social norms, encourage positive behaviours, and improve economic and living conditions in the participating communities of Aurukun, Coen, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge. Since Cape York Welfare Reform began in July 2008, the four participating communities have seen improvements in school attendance, parental responsibility and restoration of local Indigenous authority.

The bill will implement several measures affecting family and parental payments, the closed Pension Bonus Scheme, the rules for receiving certain payments overseas, the income test treatment of account based superannuation income streams, and certain student entitlements. Lastly, the bill will make some minor amendments, including ensuring that funding under the National Disability Insurance Scheme paid into a person's account which is set up for the purpose of managing the funding for supports for a participant's plan cannot be garnisheed for debt recovery procedures.

I will also shortly be moving government amendments to introduce a new measure to the bill. The new measure will delay the commencement of the Charities Act 2013 by nine months from 1 January 2014 to 1 September 2014. The Charities Act 2013 defines 'charity' and 'charitable purpose' for the purposes of all Commonwealth legislation. The government has committed to consulting with the sector on abolishing the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and establishing a centre for excellence and a possible national register of charities. The delay will mean we can work holistically with civil society, consulting a range of stakeholders, including charity law specialists who provide advice to the sector. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.