Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019. Labor supports this bill. It is important that social security is available for people when they need it but also that we ensure the integrity of our payment system, as that integrity is critical for public confidence.

The bill will require Australian social security recipients who are over 80 years old and who have resided overseas for more than two years to provide a proof-of-life certificate. A new certificate will be required every two years. Once contacted by Centrelink, a person will have 13 weeks to provide a proof-of-life certificate certified by an authorised certifier. Details will be finalised in subordinate legislation, but the government has indicated in the explanatory memorandum that authorised certifiers will include judges and magistrates, medical doctors, and staff at an Australian embassy, consulate or high commission. If a proof-of-life certificate is not received by Centrelink within the required 13 weeks a person's payment will be suspended for the following 13 weeks. If a certificate is not provided within the suspension period or the person does not re-enter Australia the payment will be cancelled. However, if at any time after the payment is suspended or cancelled a person provides a proof-of-life certificate to Centrelink their payment will recommence with full back pay. This is a very important principle in the social security payment system. Around 96,000 people who receive an Australian social security payment—usually the age pension—live overseas permanently.

It is important for the House to note that Australia's social security system, particularly the age pension, is one of the few with transportable components. The age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment can be paid to people who live permanently overseas when either the person's payment has unlimited portability under the Social Security Act or the payment is made under one of Australia's international social security agreements. This sounds complex, but, as I indicated earlier, it is important that parts of the social security payment system—the parts that I've outlined—are transportable. Currently, payments continue until a person's death is reported to Centrelink by family or friends. That is why this bill, whilst it may seem like a small piece of legislation, is quite important.

The death rate of age pensioners living overseas is currently significantly lower than of those in Australia, indicating that Centrelink is not being notified of the death in a timely manner in all cases. That's really important. The social security system relies on a family member or a friend giving notification of the death of someone living overseas who was over 80. As I said, there are 96,000 of these people in receipt of social security payment. So, until that notification from a family friend or a relative is actually received, the Centrelink payment continues to be paid. I won't go into detail, but people can understand the implications of this particular aspect of age pensioners living overseas.

It is, of course, possible that in many cases this happens because friends and family simply do not realise they need to tell Centrelink. That's a very real thing. In the midst of grief, in the midst of a loved one passing away overseas, the mechanics of the bureaucracy is the last thing on people's minds, and perhaps this is the case in a number of these particular instances. Friends and family might assume that payments are stopped automatically. It's important to understand that these payments don't stop until there is a formal notification, which, in my experience, usually includes a death certificate as well. That certificate is not issued for some time after the person's passing, and this is much more complicated, of course, if the person lived overseas. So you can understand how this happens. When a person lived overseas, payments do not necessarily stop automatically. Proof-of-life certificates are required by several European countries with portable social security payments.

Labor is very concerned that the government runs a very high risk of mucking up the implementation of these changes, just as they mucked up robo-debt. I won't go into any explanation there; I think everyone knows exactly what I'm talking about when I say robo-debt. It is a major problem, and there is now, I am advised, a strong focus on students who did some tertiary study. The muck-up of robo debt has run down Centrelink services to the point where pensioners are waiting months to get a pension, and that's a very real thing. I know that in all of our constituencies people who are waiting for the age pension are waiting nine, 10, 11 and even 12 months before their pension is actually processed. This means people are living on savings and they're running down their superannuation—an unacceptable situation.

The last thing you want to see is pensioners having their payments cut off because Centrelink didn't contact them properly or took too long to process their certificate when it was returned. If people have questions, they should not be left waiting on the phone for hours. Unfortunately, this continues to be the case at Centrelink. It is absolutely critical that the government has the right systems and resources in place to make this work, and that local certifying arrangements are not impossibly onerous for older Australians living overseas. That's a very important point. As I said, this legislation applies to people over the age of 80. It requires those individuals to provide a certificate every two years showing that they are still living. That may sound strange to some people, but when you start thinking about the implications you understand why this certifying arrangement is necessary.

We know this government's record when it comes to treatment of pensioners and older Australians. We've heard stories of pensioners waiting hours on the phone just to speak to someone in Centrelink. We've heard stories of pensioners waiting months to have their applications and payments processed. We've all experienced that. The reality is that this government's record on its treatment of pensioners has been absolutely atrocious. Cutting the pension is in the Liberals' DNA. I have said that on many occasions, but let me expand on that point. The Liberal coalition has tried to cut the pension and increase the pension age to 70 in every budget, including its three budgets when the current Prime Minister had the job of Treasurer. In the 2014 budget, the attempt was made to cut pension indexation. The cut would have meant that pensioners would have been forced to live on $80 a week less within 10 years. This unfair cut would have ripped $23 billion from the pockets of every single pensioner in Australia. In the 2014 budget they cut $1 billion from the pensioner concession—support designed to help pensioners with the costs of living. In the 2014 budget they axed the $900 seniors supplement and in the 2014 budget they tried to reset deeming rate thresholds, a cut that could have seen 500,000 part-pensioners made worse off. In the 2015 budget, the Liberals did a deal with the Greens to cut the pension to around 370,000 pensioners by as much as $1,200 a year by changing the pensioner assets test. In the 2016 budget there was an attempt to cut the pension to around 190 pensioners as part of a plan to limit overseas travel for pensioners to six weeks. We've seen the attempt to scrap the energy supplement. As I said, the government's own figures show they would have left over 563,000 pensioners worse off had the supplement been cut. It was only after a concerted campaign by seniors groups and Labor that many of these things were rectified or did not happen.

The Liberals still have cuts to the pension in the budget. The Liberals want to completely take away the pension supplement for pensioners who go overseas for more than six weeks. This will see around $120 million ripped from the pockets of pensioners. And the Liberals still want to make pensioners born overseas wait longer before qualifying for the age pension by increasing the residency requirements.

This week again we glimpsed the Prime Minister's disdain for older Australians. We saw the refusal of the Prime Minister to increase the rate of Newstart and a proposal to drug test Newstart recipients, when we know that one in four Australians on Newstart are aged over the age of 55. Older Australians experience difficulty in re-entering the workforce. Older Australians who are desperately trying to re-enter the workforce are asking themselves: how will a cashless card or a drug test help me get a job?

We see the spectre of the government wanting to move people on social security payments onto the cashless debit card, which I know we will debate in the chamber in the weeks to come. I say to the Prime Minister: what is your plan for jobs? What is the Prime Minister's plan for the economy? The reason why this Prime Minister is reheating old ideas is that he has run out of new ones. Rather than stimulating our stagnating economy and easing the situation for older Australians who have fallen on hard times, the Prime Minister is more interested in subjecting them to a humiliating urine test by way of the drug-testing idea. It is an absolute shame, as my colleague has said. How is it that Scott Morrison spends so much time obsessing over and devising ways to humiliate the proud older Australians who are trying to re-enter the workforce? It is an absolute shame. And the government should be ashamed that they are even blowing the dust off things like expansion of the cashless debit card and drug testing of people who are receiving a Centrelink payment, particularly when we know so many of those people are over the age of 55.

This legislation is important because there are so many Australians who do live overseas—96,000, as I said. And, unlike in many other countries, many social security payments are transportable. I want to reiterate what those transportable payments are, because it's unusual in any social security system. It is the age pension. We know that there are something like 1.2 to two million Australians who are on the age pension and on the disability support pension, which is aimed at people with extreme illnesses or a disability that does not allow them to participate in the workforce or participate in a limited way in the workforce. The widow B pension, the wife pension and the carer payment are also extremely important to underscore. These payments, as I said, are the payments that are applicable in terms of this piece of legislation.

The interesting thing that I've heard in bringing this legislation forward is that it is hard to get your head around how usually the onus is the other way around, but this is to make sure that people who live overseas over the age of 80 and are on any of those benefits—in this case it would be the age pension that this applies to. We hope it won't be onerous and are making sure that there are, as the government has outlined in this bill, a broad sweep of places where you can actually obtain this certificate. We also say very much to the government that, when there has been a death, particularly of a person overseas, quite often people do not understand that they need to advise Centrelink for those payments to stop. Perhaps there needs to be a bit more explanation and education about that.

I cannot reiterate how under siege age pensioners have been in terms of this government. I have outlined clearly what was attempted in the 2014 budget: resetting the deeming rate thresholds, axing the $900 energy supplement and also the $1 billion taken from pensioner concessions. I've also outlined the way in which in the 2016 budget the government attempted to limit overseas travel for pensioners, and that had an impact in a number of electorates that had high numbers of people born overseas. They have gone back to visit ageing relatives, and that is something that I know people in the electorate of Barton often do. Their relatives are in their 90s, and the idea of trying to cut the pension off for people who are going back to do that was just abhorrent. And it was really a very difficult task to make sure that that didn't take place.

I don't believe that the Prime Minister has given up on the idea of the increase of the pension age to 70, but Labor is firmly of a view that the rate set at the moment is absolutely appropriate. If you have worked in construction, if you have worked in manual labour all your life, the idea of a broken body working to the age of 70 is something that just is not tenable and certainly is not acceptable. I also wanted to add that it has been concerted campaigns by seniors groups and Labor that have made sure these abhorrent changes have not taken place.

I think the most important thing to say as well is that it seems to me that if you have to fight tooth and nail to protect pensioners then you've got to say, 'What is this parliament coming to?' Pensioners, particularly people on the age pension, deserve our respect. They deserve our commitment and they deserve our loyalty. They have worked their entire lives. They have paid taxes. They are people that have made sure that in very difficult times the Australian economy has continued.

And the other thing, of course, is to ask clearly and firmly about the agenda of the government: 'What is your plan for getting older people back into the workforce?' If you are 50 or 55 and your industry is closed down or you have been retrenched, it is extremely difficult to get another job, particularly if you've been in that industry for 30 or 40 years, as many of these people have been. And there is no indication, no plan from this government, for retraining. There is certainly no plan for making sure that older people are able to get back into good jobs that afford them their dignity.

The Prime Minister and the government need to understand that drug testing people on Newstart will affect many older Australians. The idea of asking someone who is 55 and has worked solidly for the last 40 years to urinate into a cup to prove to Centrelink that they're not a drug addict is an absolute insult. The real question is: what is the plan to grow the economy? What is the plan to get people in this category back into the workforce? They are not people who should be thrown on the scrap heap. They are people who have for their entire lives worked and contributed to the Australian economy. We owe those people a commitment that they will not spend their ensuing years on Centrelink until they become eligible for the age pension—if you can ever get an application through for the age pension.

Keep in mind that Labor has moved a second reading amendment to this legislation. I believe the government have a start date for this bill, which they are providing to us. The government's complete lack of commitment to pensioners is well documented. It is well documented in the way I have spoken about it here this afternoon. It's also well documented that the Prime Minister was the Treasurer for three budgets and each and every one of those budgets had an attack on pensions, which I have also outlined.

I finish by saying that this legislation relates to people who have for some time lived overseas accessing the social security system. As I said, Australia is fairly unique. It is amongst a small number of nations that have a transportable welfare system, which I think is absolutely appropriate. We should have a transportable social security system but there has to be integrity within that system. There has to be within that system the capacity to make sure people who are in receipt of social security payments are actually meeting a number of obligations.

The amendment Labor moved goes to the cuts to the age pension, the age of people who qualify for the pension and a whole range of other issues that I've outlined in the comments that I have made today. I finish by saying that this legislation in terms of age pensioners living overseas does not address the other ills that I've outlined. The government has tried year in and year out, budget in and budget out, to pursue cutting pensions, increasing the age of qualifying for the age pension, limiting overseas travel for the 190,000 pensioners who have family and relatives living overseas and, most egregiously, cutting the energy supplement to new pensioners. The government talks up bringing energy prices down, but it is not true. I think trying to scrap the energy supplement was an absolute new low.

Labor will always stand up for age pensioners. We will always stand up for the many tens of thousands of people who have spent their entire life making sure that this Australian economy works well and who have worked in industries that, through no fault of their own, have been made non-existent, or they've been retrenched and now find themselves on a Centrelink payment for the first time in their life, not for any other reason than circumstances. It is those people that we will always stand up for. I make these comments and move Labor's amendments.

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