Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

They understood that when you cut company tax rates, as has been well proven—I will send the data to you on what they did—it increases the private sector's pie. We used to collect more company tax. When Keating started slashing company tax rates—slashing; he did not cut it—within two or three years we were collecting more money in company tax than we were before. And not only were we collecting more money but it was a bigger contribution to the economy, because you cannot tax your way to prosperity. I am sorry, but some people have to do well in a community. Some companies have to make a lot of money, and some people have to make a lot of money, for a community to do well. Shock, horror, gasp, God forgive us all! Do you know what else happens? Do you know who funds every pension? Do you know who funds every welfare recipient? Do you know who funds every school? Do know who funds every hospital? Do you know who funds every defence dollar we spend? Do you know who funds all that? It is the companies and the private individuals that do well.

I will draw a distinction for you here, too—and it might be a shock. It is the people in the private sector, the workers in the private sector—not the ones in the public sector; they take money from the people in the private sector. And do you know what? We need the private sector to do well. Let me give you some examples. I did not know how I was going to get to 15 minutes on this, but I think I am going to be fine now. Let me give you a few history lessons, too. About 100-odd years ago—I cannot remember exactly—Marx came up with this idea: let's have everyone be equal. It is not okay that the rich, bourgeois set have more than the others. So, they tried that. They tried it for a few decades in a few places. The Chinese thought that maybe it was not a very good idea. The Russians decided as well that it was not working too well, because when you go to work and the guy who sits next to you does nothing and you do a lot and you both get the same—it did not seem to work.

I actually asked a friend of mine the other day to give me a good example, because I think that friend thinks a lot like those opposite—but I like the person anyway! I said, give me a good example on the globe right now of what you think works well. This person is also a university professor—which makes me worry about our education system! Do you know what example they gave? Cuba. They said that Cuba is a good example of this; that is our shining light. God help us! God help us, with the corruption in Cuba. I said, it is funny, because I do not see people trying to get to Cuba. I see a lot of people trying to get out of the joint, but not a lot trying to get into the joint. Anyway, that is 15 minutes that I will not get back, but the politics of envy is working well for you, and I encourage you if you believe that. So be it, but it is not a great contribution to the growth of our country.

Let me get back to the bill. I have spoken for five minutes, and that is good, because I was not sure I was going to get to 15. The Energy Assistance Payment is important, as has previously been said. And I do want to talk a bit later about the energy market and the national grid, because we face great challenges with our energy market. Some of the state RET targets are really distorting our grid. It is interesting: whenever I talk to some members of the Greens, the answer to every question—'How did you get to work today?'—is 'renewable energy'. What time is it? Renewable energy. Renewable energy is a good and admirable thing that we need to encourage. We certainly need to grow that industry, because it is a transition. We are in a transition from fossil fuels, coal and other sources like nuclear and renewable energy. We are in a transition from fossil fuels, coal and other sources like nuclear to renewable energy. I think one day, when we have the battery storage technology—the world is obviously trying to solve this issue of battery storage capabilities with renewable energy—that will then transform it.

The danger we have at the moment is we are placing ourselves in a very delicate situation where we are mandating targets of an energy source that is intermittent, and that is causing distortions. I think the greatest distortion we have seen examples of is in South Australia, because they have a pretty gung-ho approach with this. They now have nearly 50 per cent of their energy sources coming from renewables. That seemed very admirable. They thought that was a lovely thing to do because of other reasons. But, as we saw a number of times in the last summer, when we rely so much on an intermittent energy source—that is the problem; it is an intermittent energy source because we do not have the technology yet to store energy from these intermittent sources like wind and solar—we are placing ourselves in great vulnerability. We have seen a couple of times lately the consequences in South Australia. It has also obviously meant that the cost of energy in certain places has gone up.

Let me go back to the assistance payment. This is going to be available to recipients of the aged pension, the disability support pension and the parenting payment single, and to veterans and their partners paid the service pension, the income support supplement and relevant compensation payments who are eligible for payment residing in Australia on 20 June 2017, the test date, to assist them with their energy costs. We are very conscious that we need to assist people who do have tight budgets to cover rising energy costs. The assistance will be paid at $75 for singles and $62.50 for each member of a couple, providing additional assistance to around 3.8 million Australians, including 2½ million aged pension recipients, 770,000 disability support pension recipients, 260,000 parenting payment single recipients and 235,000 recipients of veterans' payments.

To be eligible, one has to be a recipient of one of the qualifying payments and residing in Australia on the test date of 20 June. Those qualified will automatically receive a payment through Centrelink or the Department of Veterans' Affairs and they will not need to take any action; no claim is necessary. The payment will not be taxed and will not reduce their rate of income support. For those people who have made a claim for payment on or before the test date and have subsequently had that claim granted, it will also be paid as the one-off payment. Legislation ensures that a person cannot receive more than one entitlement. People who are not in receipt of a payment because they are suspended on the test date will not be eligible. Qualifying veterans will include those receiving disability pension; the war widower's pension under the Veterans' Entitlements Act; the permanent impairment compensation, the special rate disability pension or highly dependent partner payments under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act; or permanent impairment compensation under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act on the test date.

The second schedule of this bill is the pensioner concession card. This bill is going to reinstate the card to around 92,300 former pension recipients who ceased being eligible for the pension on 1 January 2017 due to the rebalancing of the pension assets test. They will once again be eligible for this card. This consists of 88,000 former pensioners paid by the Department of Social Services and 3,600 former pensioners paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs. From 1 January these people were all issued with a health care card. Those over the aged pension qualification age were also issued the Commonwealth seniors health card. From the Commonwealth perspective, these cards provide the same benefits to the cardholder in terms of access to cheaper medicines through the PBS scheme and the lower extent of the Medicare safety net.

These cards do not, however, provide access to free hearing services provided by the Department of Health or a range of concessions and benefits provided by states, territories and private providers which are available to pension concession card holders. The government has decided to reinstate the pension concession cards to maximise concessions to these people. Whilst eligibility criteria for concession cards are set by the Commonwealth government, the decision to use certain Commonwealth government concession cards as the trigger or as a vehicle for targeting state and territory concessions is a choice made by the state and territory governments and other private providers. State concessions on rates, utilities, motor vehicle registrations and public transport are all determined by the type of card you hold. Due to the decisions of the state and territory governments and/or the private providers, some concessions available to pensioner concession card holders are not available to holders of other types of concession cards, including a health care card and Commonwealth seniors card. Re-issuing the pensioner concession card will help overcome this anomaly and help facilitate people gaining access to these discounts and concessions. This is going to cost $3.1 million over two years to reinstate the pensioner concession cards to these people, former pension recipients whose pension is cancelled. This is an expense that obviously we as government think we should make, to go a long way to assist them in managing their budgets. Consistent with the health care card and Commonwealth seniors card they have now, the pensioner concession card will be automatically reissued from 9 October 2017, with an ongoing income and assets test exemption.

To maintain their current Commonwealth benefits, those former pensioners issued with a Commonwealth seniors health card will also retain that card. As the pensioner concession card provides all the benefits the health care card, the health care card will become redundant and will be deactivated for those former pensioners issued with a health care card on 1 January 2017. The eligibility requirements will ensure that these former pensioners will maintain ongoing eligibility to the standalone pensioner concession card, but still have to meet some of the conditions in place for usual pensioner concession card holders. The conditions include portability requirements, where cardholders would have their card suspended after being overseas for six weeks. The card will be reactivated on return to Australia. The pensioner concession card will also be cancelled if the cardholder is in jail. I commend the bill to the House.

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