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

Tonight I speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill (No. 2) 2015. It is another year and another bill that seeks to rip thousands of dollars from the pockets of Australian families. It is clear that it is not just the Liberal Party; it is also the National Party. The National Party represent some of the lowest income electorates in this country and yet they are prepared to take thousands of dollars out of the pockets of those on the lowest incomes. It is going to come out of the pockets of poor families. That is where it is going to come from. It is going to come out of the pockets of poor families if the National Party get their way. That is exactly where it is going to come from.

It is like an annual tradition for the Liberal Party and the National Party. Every single year they come around and put forward legislation to cut family payments to millions of Australian families. The characters might change from year to year, a conversation about an increase to the GST might come or go, but the same cuts to families remain. It all began in the 2014 budget when the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, proposed to cut $8.5 billion out of the pockets of families. These cuts of $8.5 billion would have made it so much harder for families to receive the support that they needed to help with the cost of raising children. These cuts would have left a single-income family on $65,000 a year around $6,000 each year worse off. That would have applied right through all of the National Party seats as well as Liberal Party seats. $6,000 each year is how much worse off Australian families would have been if this Liberal-National Party government had been successful in getting its first round of cuts to family payments through the parliament. I am very pleased to say that Labor fought those cuts and won.

Then last year in what the Liberals and the Nationals called a compromise they again tried to cut support to families. This time they were cuts of $4.8 billion. Again, Labor fought for families. Labor fought for families that faced cuts of around $5,000 a year. We fought against the cuts to the family tax benefit supplement and cuts to family tax benefit part B. We are doing so again tonight, because this bill contains the same cuts to family tax benefit supplements, both A and B, and the same cuts to family tax benefit part B for single parents. Today Labor is saying to this Prime Minister: enough is enough. These cuts to family payments completely fail the fairness test. They fail the fairness test that the Prime Minister himself set for changes to family payments. Last year the new Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, said in reference to these changes:

Fairer is what it is all about. Fairness has got to be the key priority.

Well, Prime Minister, these changes to family payments will make families up to $5,000 a year worse off. How could that be fair?

The Prime Minister cannot just talk about fairness. He cannot just say one thing and then do the exact opposite. Yet that is exactly what is happening here. It is also happening on climate change, marriage equality and the republic. This Prime Minister says one thing and then does another. He says he believes in fairness but then he makes massive cuts to low- and middle-income families.

I will just give the parliament an example. A single-parent family with two teenage children stands to lose around $4,700 a year or $97 a week when the impact of these cuts to family payments and the abolition of the schoolkids bonus are combined. So a single parent with two teenagers will those $1,806 in family tax benefit A and B end-of-year supplements, $1,712 as a result of the abolition of the schoolkids bonus and $1,785 in family tax benefit part B, as the base payment is set to be reduced to $1,000 a year. These cuts will apply each and every year to the poorest families in this country. These families would only gain around $525 from a fortnightly increase to family tax benefit part A. But when you add it altogether it would mean that a family like this—a single parent with two teenagers—would end up a total of $4,700 a year worse off. How on earth could that be fair?

Just last week we saw new projections from the Parliamentary Budget Office that showed that Mr Turnbull's cuts to family payments will cost families $16 billion over the next 10 years. That is how much each and every member of the Liberal and National parties are going to take out of the pockets of the poorest families in this country when they vote for this legislation in a few hours time. $16 billion will come out of the pockets of low- and middle-income families when each of these Liberal and National Party members vote for it. That is how much this Turnbull government wants to rip from the pockets of Australian families—$16 billion over the next decade.

What this proves is that it does not really matter who leads the Liberal Party or the National Party. It does not matter who the Treasurer is. It does not matter who the social services minister is. All this government want to do is dip into the pockets of Australian families and take money out of them. They are not actually interested in how these families manage; they just want to take these huge amounts of money off them.

I want to go through the detail of what is in this legislation and exactly how exactly how families will be worse off as a result of these proposed cuts. There will be a reduction in family tax benefit part B for single parent families when their youngest child turns 13. There will be around 136,000 single parents with children aged over 13 who will have their family tax benefit part B reduced to $1,000 in 2016—a cut of around $1,700 a year. Single parents with children over the age of 16 will have their family tax benefit cut entirely, and that means they will lose $3,100. I have to say that my great fear with that measure is that if it gets through the parliament—and I sincerely hope that it will not—it will be a very big disincentive for young people to stay in school. It will make life that much harder for the families of young people who do decide that they will try to stay in school.

There will also be a rapid phase-out of family tax benefit A and B end-of-year supplements over two years. The family tax benefit A supplement will be reduced to $602.25 from 1 July 2016, then to $302.95 from 1 July 2017 and abolished entirely from 1 July 2018. Everyone should know that this will apply to 1.5 million Australian families—that is, 1½ million families who will entirely lose their family tax benefit part A supplement. That is a cut of $725 a year for every single child in those families. Around 500,000 of those families are on family incomes of less than $50,000 a year. There families are on very low incomes, and this government is going to take hundreds and hundreds of dollars out of their pockets.

The impact of these cuts, of course, will be compounded by cuts to family tax benefit part B. There are 1.3 million families who will lose their family tax benefit part B supplement—that is a cut of $354 a year per family. Single-parent families will lose both of the supplements—both family tax benefit A and B. In total, more than 1.6 million families will be left worse off because of these cuts. That is what the Liberal members and the National Party members are going to be voting for tonight. There will be thousands of these families in the electorate of each and every member who will vote in favour of these cuts tonight. Shame on each and every one of you. Three million children are set to lose the support that their parents rely on. The family tax benefit part B supplement will be reduced to $302.95 from 1 July 2016. It will go to $153.30 from 1 July 2017, and it will be abolished entirely from 1 July 2018. So these cuts are very, very harsh indeed. They are very harsh cuts that will have a very real impact on the living standards of families across Australia. In fact, I believe that these cuts are actually harsher than those contained in the 2014 budget.

Also contained in this bill is a very small increase of $10 a fortnight in the standard child rate of family tax benefit part A. However—and only this government could figure this out—around 300,000 families will not even receive this increase but will still be affected by the Prime Minister's cuts. The bill also sees the return of the Baby Bonus in the form of a new rate of family tax benefit part B that will be introduced for families with children aged under one. This particular measure is quite remarkable for a number of reasons. First of all, it completely flies in the face of the government's rhetoric about budget repair. Second, it is contrary to the government's rhetoric about simplifying the welfare system. We have just heard the Minister for Social Services go on and on about how important it is to simplify the welfare system, and here they are creating a new payment in this bill! Of course, it is just another piece of rhetoric by them gone wrong. It does make you wonder why the measure exists at all. The reason, of course, was that it was part of the deal that the current Prime Minister did with the Nationals after he rolled the previous Prime Minister.

This Prime Minister yesterday talked about good policymaking taking precedence over political decisions. If the Prime Minister were true to his word, then he would take this measure out of this bill immediately. I cannot recall a measure that is so blatantly about the Prime Minister shoring up support in the coalition party room. This really takes the cake!

I am pleased to say that Labor have been able to get some concessions out of the government. We were able to get some exemptions for around 4,000 grandparent carers from the cuts to family tax benefit part B that would apply when their youngest child turns 13. But we should not forget the appalling way in which this Liberal National Party government was prepared to treat grandparent carers, and, of course, all the Liberal and National Party members over there voted for it. The Minister for Social Services stood up in this place in question time and told grandparent carers to go out and get a job. It was so offensive and so out of touch. Then, of course, we saw him give a train wreck interview. He was asked whether a grandparent carer with a 15-year-old in their care would be $2,500 a year worse off, and he said:

Errr, well, that depends on their capacity to access childcare and re-enter the workforce.

A grandparent carer with a 15-year-old child and the minister says that whether or not they are going to be worse off depends on their capacity to access child care and re-enter the workforce. Honestly, I don't know if the minister was doing an impersonation of the previous Minister for Social Services, the member for Menzies, or he really is that out of touch—it is hard to tell—because anyone who has actually met a grandparent carer would know how hard it is and how much that responsibility weighs on their shoulders.

Late last year, just before Christmas, I had the opportunity to meet with some grandparent carers at the Mirabel Foundation in the electorate of the member for Melbourne Ports. I know that the member for Melbourne Ports is a big supporter of everyone at Mirabel. The member for Melbourne Ports was instrumental in having Mirabel's funding restored after it was cut in the 2014 budget by this Liberal-National Party government. Mirabel does amazing work, and I want to thank Jane Rowe and Elizabeth McCrea and the whole team for the work they do. It was a very, very emotional visit. Some of the stories that this group of grandparent carers shared with me were very sad—stories of terrible tragedy. But I also heard stories of extraordinary love and dedication—love and dedication to their grandchildren. Grandparent carers do an amazing job.

One grandparent carer I met at Mirabel was Lorri, and I want to spend some time talking about Lorri's story. She has been caring for her 13-year-old granddaughter since 2002. Her granddaughter was only two months old when Lorri was asked to care for her. Lorri's own daughter had a history of mental health illness and chronic drug use, and she died in 2007. The money that Lorri had previously saved and invested to ensure she would be independent in her retirement had to be used to buy a car and to cover the ongoing costs of caring for her granddaughter. She now rents a small two-bedroom private rental unit for herself and her granddaughter. Her granddaughter's school fees for 2016 will be $1,100 which will need to be gradually paid off through the year. Up until now the schoolkids bonus has helped with the ever-increasing cost of school. But, of course, this government has decided to scrap the schoolkids bonus from the middle of this year—and that too will affect Lorri and her granddaughter greatly. If the government's cuts to family payments had gone through the parliament, Lorri told me that she would have 'gone under'. That is how serious these cuts are. This is a real person. She is not a number in the budget papers. Lorri is a real person.

The grandparent carers that I met at Mirabel really do not expect that much from any government; most just want a little bit of help that might make their special responsibility in life that much easier. Instead, what this Liberal-National government is trying to do is make their life so much harder. It was Labor that had to shame this government into dropping their cuts to grandparent carers. They did not do it out of the goodness of their heart. We had to shame them into it. I want to say to all those grandparent carers out there that Labor will continue to fight for you in the face of this Liberal-National Party government's cuts. As a result of the legislation that is before us tonight, grandparent carers will still lose all of their family tax benefit end-of-year supplements. That is what this legislation will do to grandparent carers. So I would say to everybody who is going to vote on this legislation: think about these extraordinary people before you vote tonight.

As I said earlier, we should not forget that Mr Turnbull said in an interview just last October that his approach to family payment changes would be all about fairness. Well, Mr Turnbull, in this legislation, single-parent families will be around $5,000 a year worse off. This is Prime Minister Turnbull's version of fairness: single parents will be around $5,000 a year worse off. This is a Prime Minister who continually says one thing and does another. He may say that he is not convinced about an increase to the GST right now, but how could you trust him? How could you trust this Prime Minister or this Liberal-National government to keep their word about anything, after the record we have seen in the last two and a half years? How could you trust this Prime Minister when he talks about fairness and he wants to take $5,000 out of the budgets of low- and middle-income families? So Labor will again oppose these cuts. We will oppose this bill today. We will oppose it because we do believe in fairness, and we are not just saying it like the Prime Minister does. We will put people first. We will put families first. And that is why we are opposing this bill with every ounce of our passion today.

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