Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I stand to support the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Measures) Bill 2015. In doing so I am supporting the government's strategy to bring expenditure on social services under control and to ensure the system's sustainability and longevity.

I am sure there are very few who would disagree with me when I say that Australia's social services system is one that we as a nation can be very proud of. I believe we Australians care about each other. We help those in need and we look after each other. To be frank, we are the envy of the world. I suspect that this is one of the driving reasons behind the decision of so many people to bypass many other countries to get on unsafe boats and seek refuge in our country.

Our social services system reflects this attitude of caring and looking after one another. Our social services system is comprehensive. On average, approximately one-third of Australians are accessing some form of government payment of subsidy. However, with such a broad system comes a degree of overlap, complexity and, dare I say it, more often than we would like, noncompliance. For the average Australian this makes it challenging to understand which payments are eligible for, how much they can receive and what details of each payment might be. I am sure that members on both sides of the House are familiar with the scenario where constituents come into our offices with an armful of Centrelink paperwork. They are at the end of their tether because they cannot navigate the complex labyrinth of social security payments in Australia.

The scale of our social security system makes it one of the strongest and most comprehensive systems in the world, and it is a financial safety net that exists for Australians that is one of the greatest strengths of our society. If we are to have a social security system that is fair, it must also be fair on future generations of Australians. It is not always just about us. More often than not, it is about those who come after us. A system that is not sustainable, costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year and is the fastest growing area of government expenditure is of concern. It is not fair on our children or our grandchildren, who will be saddled with debt after years of what we all now know as Labor budget blow-outs. In the years that Labor was in government, from 2008, Labor delivered deficits totalling $191 billion. If the budget were to have been left on the trajectory that Labor set it on, an additional projected deficit of $123 billion over the forward estimates would have increased that deficit further.

I will digress for a moment and refer to the previous speaker, the shadow minister, who got to her feet so proudly and said that she has had enough of the members of the government saying that the opposition, the Labor Party, will not support our savings measures. I have never said that they will not support them; I have mostly said they will not support most of them. She got to her feet very proudly and said, 'We've helped to save $9 billion.' That is over the forward estimates; it is not today, tomorrow or this year. It is over the next three or four years.

Let me reiterate: in the six or seven years that they were in charge, there were $191 billion of deficits. On top of their projected deficits, if we had not fixed it up or tried to fix it up without any help from them, it would have been another $123 billion. So it was $123 billion worth of deficits and she stands so proudly at the podium to declare, 'We've helped save $9 billion.' Thank you, but whoop-de-do! There is a lot more hard work to be done. When the hard work needs to be done, you look over your shoulder to have a look to see who is behind you and you will not find the Labor Party of Australia, that is for sure. We simply cannot continue to spend taxpayers' hard-earned money in the way that we have been, led obviously by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. We cannot continue it. It is unsustainable.

The bill before the House today, combined with other bills that have come before the House, seeks to simplify our social security system and bring the social security bill to a level that is sustainable into the future. This bill implements two key measures: firstly, the portability of the family tax benefit will be reduced to six weeks and, secondly, the large family supplement will be removed. Both of these measures are carefully planned and implemented, with targeted exemptions that I will detail.

In reducing the portability of family tax benefit part A and payments that rely on family tax benefit B, eligibility will be paid for six weeks to recipients who are outside of Australia. This measure will save $42.1 million across the forward estimates and, importantly, there are safeguards in this change to protect families who are overseas advancing Australia's interests. For example, members of the Australian Defence Force or Australian Federal Police who are deployed overseas will not be impacted by this change. Exemptions extend to those who are unable to return to Australia for a valid reason. The Secretary of the Department of Social Services will retain discretionary ability to extend the six-week portability period to up to three years.

It is made clear by this legislation that, for the payments to continue, the receiver of the payment will need to demonstrate a strong connection to Australia. I would say that I would doubt there would be too many Australians who would disagree with that eligibility criteria. The social security system is a residence-based system and is designed to help Australians living in Australia with the costs associated with that living in Australia. However, to maintain fairness and equity in the system, safeguards are in place to ensure that those who are serving our country overseas or those who cannot return through no fault of their own are not unfairly disadvantaged. This is a good part of this change.

I support the changes to the portability of social security payments and, as I said in the House in speaking on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Budget Repair) Bill just last week, the standard we apply in our social services legislation should also extend to past politicians' pensions, as far as I am concerned. If we are to reduce the portability of this to six weeks, we should also reduce the portability of past politicians' pensions. I have written to Mr Porter and Mr Cormann asking that they consider this. I support fairness—I am speaking on it here today—and I support equity for Australians. I strongly believe that the standards applied should be applied to all Australians.

I do not see how it is fair to allow former prime ministers in particular to pretty well pack their bags, leave the country and still be able to collect their pensions at the expense of the Australian taxpayer. I think if we are going to talk about fairness and equity, that is something that we should be looking at. No-one is suggesting that they should not travel overseas and fulfil the role that we would seek them to fulfil as past prime ministers from whatever side of the parliament. But when someone packs their bags and basically moves to New York or takes up a professorship in a university somewhere around the world and kisses us goodbye for a year, half a year or two years, I do not see the fairness in that. I have written—as I have said—to Ministers Porter and Cormann, seeking them to at the very least have a look at that.

The second measure in this bill is the cessation of the large family supplement, which will save the taxpayers $177.3 million over the forward estimates. Whilst it is a small component of the family tax benefit A, the total savings are significant. This government is committed to ensuring that the social services system is as efficient and cost-effective as possible. There has been consistent evidence from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling that each additional child in a family costs less than the previous children. As families grow, some of the costs incurred in preparing for the first child do not recur.

This may be a particular matter of interest to you, Deputy Speaker Vasta, as your own family grows. I am sure that you will be pleased to hear that it gets cheaper. They are cheaper by the dozen! You will only have nine to go! It has been reported in the most recent research findings that a family's second child costs 83 per cent of the first, while the third child costs 69 per cent of the first. Mr Deputy Speaker and anyone else who might be interested, you go on long enough and you get the last one for free! They would cost you nothing, if that is true!

This clear trend in costs to families makes it quite clear that this change is both sensible and an improvement to the social services system. Removal of the large family supplement has had significant support from a number of review bodies, not least to mention the Henry tax review; the National Commission of Audit; and the McClure reviews, of which there have been a couple. They all support the removal of this payment. As the McClure review stated:

The removal of one supplement helps to simplify what is such a complicated system for families.

The removal of this payment is one small step towards making our social security system simpler, fairer and better targeted so that the people who it is designed to support can better understand and access it.

Those opposite could sit there and oppose the bill, but thankfully they are not doing so on this occasion by the sounds of it. But when they have their constituents ask them why the social security system is complex and not understandable, I hope that they will reflect on those other bills that they have refused to support and try to offer an explanation to their constituents as to how this government or any government may in fact fix the problems. But I do not understand why they would choose not to assist us in that.

In 2015-16 the government will spend approximately one-third of its total expenditure on social services, of which approximately $20 billion—that is, $20,000 million—will be spent on family tax benefit payments. The total saving of around $200 million that this legislation provides represents just one per cent of the $20 billion that we are talking about with family tax benefit payments. I believe this is a very reasonable and fair measure when compared with the generous payments that will continue to be available to families.

If the Labor P arty had not spent so much money and built up such high levels of debt, these and the many other measures we are attempting to address would not have been be necessary. The reality is that the Labor debt mess means we are spending $100 million per day more than we are receiving.

Mr Feeney interjecting—

The member opposite has no shame. He shakes his head as if it were not true. Well, it is true. Every day, we as a country are spending in excess of $100 million more than we are receiving. Every day, we need to pay well over $30 million in interest payments alone just to cover the debt that was wholly and solely accrued in the time of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. They started with a clean sheet, with money in the bank, and we ended up in a debt and deficit disaster. These savings measures that I stand to speak on today are appropriate, fair and reasonable. They allow us to take steps toward reining in the debt disaster that Labor left us. We cannot continue to spend the way the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government did. Despite every effort by those opposite to stand in our way, we will continue to do what is right and prudent for the people of Australia and those that will come after us.

I commend the bill to the House.

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