Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the member for Corangamite, who has just completed her contribution as the chair of the Coalition Backbench Policy Committee on Social Services, and the passion and understanding that she has for this issue and for the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhanced Welfare Payment Integrity) Bill 2016, which is before the House today. It is interesting just to reflect on some of the comments, and I do not want to repeat all of those very factual and evidence based comments that the member for Corangamite made. But I just want to put them in context and look at the welfare spend that government makes in terms of the overall budget.

The social service and welfare budget of the country accounts for 35 per cent of every dollar of spend that the Commonwealth government makes. Comparing with the rest of government, if I could show you on this graph, it is very clear that the substantive side of the social services and welfare budget makes the health budget, for example, pale into insignificance. It is a quantum almost three times as much as the payments that Treasury makes to the states, local governments and different things. It is a quantum nearly seven times as much as education and training. The social services budget is responsible for almost eight or nine times as much as regional infrastructure and development.

It is also interesting to reflect on why we are in this situation now and why we are putting in place what I think are very reasonable measures. Most Australians would understand that payments made through the welfare system are based on a concept of mutual obligation between the recipient and the taxpayer who funds it. It is not government that funds it—it is the taxpayers. The taxpayers fund payments that are rightly made to people who are less fortunate, and long may that be the case. But when payments that have been made are greater than they should have been, I think most reasonable Australians would consider, particularly given the circumstances that we have in respect of the budget—and I will go into that a bit further in a minute—that it is reasonable that the government, on behalf of the taxpayers who make those contributions, look to recover payments that have been made over and above what the recipient was entitled to receive.

Similarly, if you look at the budget between 2015-16 and 2018-19 and you look at savings and revenue measures that have either been blocked by those opposite or not supported by the Labor Party, the total is $13.4 billion, of which $7.1 billion in revenue or savings measures are in the social services portfolio. Spending that Labor says we must restore is $30.3 billion in the total budget, of which $3.7 billion is in the social services portfolio. Additional Labor spending proposals are $11.4 billion and $1 billion or thereabouts within the social services portfolio. In total, Labor's budget black hole, when it comes to the overall budget, is $46.9 billion, of which nearly $10 billion resides within the social services budget.

We have inherited a situation, if you will, akin to the bad tenants that trashed the joint. They trashed the rental unit and not only that, they locked the door. So when we came in to try and clean up the mess that the bad tenants left and the repairs that needed to be done, we were unable to get in. Those on the other side created the damage that has left us as a nation spending $1 billion every month in interest on the money that we owe. $700 million of that we owe overseas. We must repay $1 billion every month on our debt thanks to those opposite. Australians should never forget that. When we tried to bring in a range of different measures to clean up the mess that the bad tenants had left us with, they blocked it. They blocked it in the Senate with the support of the Greens and the crossbenchers.

That is why this bill is important. We have been unable to make those substantive changes that we proposed to make in respect of payments to people where we needed to reduce our level of spending. Balancing a budget is not only about revenue—it is also about spending. I think most Australians understand very, very clearly that we have had difficulty dealing with the Labor Party in respect of cleaning up the mess that they left us with.

We have before us today a measure to make sure that when payments have been made over and above what was entitled to be received by somebody on child support or other payments made through the social services budget, the government has the capacity to recover those debts. As the member for Corangamite before me highlighted, this will not be done in a way that compromises people's lives and the standard of living that they enjoy. They will be able to enter into repayment plans with the department to make those payments in modest ways. It has happened on many occasions that a recipient who owes the taxpayers of Australia outstanding debts has effectively been stopped from travelling overseas until they have repaid their debt. I do not know that most Australians think that is unreasonable.

There are exceptions based on humanitarian grounds—for example, where somebody wants to visit overseas in the case of a relative who is deceased. Of course there are those exemptions. But it is not reasonable, when the taxpayers of Australia are owed a debt, that somebody is going overseas to lie on a beach in Bali. I think most Australians would understand that.

The second component of this bill before us today looks at the amendments to remove the current six-year statute of limitations to recover social welfare debts that would otherwise be non-recoverable. This aligns the treatment of social welfare debts with other arrangements in other Commonwealth agencies. Just by way of practical example—and I note those people in the gallery there—if you have a debt to the Australian Taxation Office, they will come after you and they will seek you. They have the capacity over—

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