Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Since the Albanese Labor government was first elected, we have been hard at work restoring trust in Australia's social security system.

This is one of the critical tasks of government, because, without the trust of the Australian taxpayer and income support recipients, the social security system loses legitimacy in the eyes of the community.

That was the legacy of the coalition government and of robodebt.

Across consecutive budget cycles and record funding, the government has restored fairness and adequacy for many income support recipients by raising the rate of working-age and student payments to help ease cost-of-living pressures. Since we were elected, we have increased the annual single rate of JobSeeker payments by almost $4,000. This is as a result of the government's real increase to working-age and student payments of $40 per fortnight, along with regular indexation. We have increased Commonwealth rent assistance maximum rates by nearly 50 per cent through real increases in 2023 and 2024 as well as indexation. We are providing more support through our changes to parenting payment single, which has expanded eligibility for the payment to around 106,000 single parents. We are expanding paid parental leave to a total of 26 weeks by the middle of this year, with superannuation now paid on top of paid parental leave.

Parents who have a child today can receive almost $12,000 more through the Paid Parental Leave scheme than when we first came to government.

And, from 20 January 2026, the government will increase the small debt waiver threshold to $250, to be indexed annually, with around 1.2 million small debts expected to be waived or no longer needing to be raised in 2025-26 as a result.

Access to special circumstances debt waivers was also expanded for more victims of financial abuse and coercion, specifically those coerced into providing false information to the government by their abusers.

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 1) Bill 2026 marks another important milestone in strengthening the legal framework for Australia's social security system. It's a largely technical bill and reflects the need for social security legislation to be dynamic and to evolve with the policy intent of government and as external challenges demand.

The bill also responds to priorities identified through the Legal Compliance and Remediation Program within Services Australia. Many are being resolved simply by policy or system changes in Services Australia, but other changes require legislation. Again, the robodebt era saw too many of these hidden away, put in the too-hard basket or left for someone else to fix. Minister Gallagher and I are responding to these issues as they arise and as they come to our notice.

This bill gives legal clarity to long established practice and policy intent across four key areas: firstly, clarifying the commencement date of child support periods when the Child Support Registrar receives information about a parent's tax assessment; secondly, clarifying that child support eligibility is limited to those with more than 35 per cent care of a child; thirdly, allowing for urgent payments to be provided to eligible recipients outside the standard fortnightly cycle; and finally, upholding as existing arrangements for the assessment of employment income, particularly income earned by support by partners of income support recipients.

The bill amends the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989, the Assessment Act, to allow a child support period to start a month later than currently provided for if a new child support assessment is made after the 15th day of the month. This ensures that parents have sufficient time to adjust to a new child support assessment before it comes into effect. Currently, where a new tax assessment is received by the Child Support Registrar after the 15th day of the month and a new child support assessment is made in that same month, the legislation requires that a new child support period commence from the start of the next month. That means in practice that parents may have as little as one day to adjust to a new child support assessment. The amendments will ensure that where a new child support assessment is made after the 15th day of a calendar month, the new child support period will begin from the first day of the second month following the assessment. The practical effect here is that, when a new assessment is made requiring a higher or lower child support payment, we ensure that parents have the following month to prepare for the change instead of potentially just one or two days.

The bill also amends the Assessment Act to fix legislative anomalies that could allow parents with less than 35 per cent care of a child to be entitled to child support. It is a longstanding principle of the system that a parent or carer who has less than 35 per cent care of a child is not eligible to receive child support for that child as they do not bear a significant enough burden of the direct costs of care. In most cases, the existing legislation ensures a parent with more than 65 per cent care is not required to pay child support. This ensures parents who provide the clear majority of care have sufficient resources to financially support their children. These amendments ensure that a parent with less than 35 per cent care is not entitled to receive child support, and it validates decisions made since 2008 with that effect.

These amendments are necessary as amendments made in 2008 and 2018 to child support law had the unintended consequence of technically allowing some parents with less than 35 per cent care to be eligible for child support. It was never the intention of parliament to make such a change, and these amendments correct this technicality. The amendments will also validate previous decisions which have been made on this basis to provide certainty for parents and carers, and the changes uphold the objects, principles and policy intent of the Child Support Scheme and reflect consistent practice over decades.

While these two measures clarify technical legal aspects of the current operation of the Child Support Scheme, I'd like the House to note that there is much more work to be done to ensure the scheme delivers children the financial support they are owed and is safe for women at risk of violence or abuse. I expect to have more to say on further improvements to the child support system later this year.

The bill also amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to strengthen the legislative basis for making urgent payments to people experiencing financial difficulties in exceptional and unforeseen circumstances.

Urgent payments are a longstanding and important part of the social security system, providing immediate financial assistance to vulnerable people in emergency situations.

An urgent payment is not an additional payment but enables a person to receive a portion of their usual fortnightly entitlement early.

Currently, a person can generally only receive two urgent payments in a 12-month period. This limit will be removed.

Instead, other safeguards will be implemented to ensure people still have enough funds on their usual payment delivery day to cover their regular expenses.

These safeguards will include limiting the payment amount to a maximum of between $20 and $200, and up to 50 per cent of the person's accrued entitlement (whichever is lower) after any deductions (such as Centrepay) or repayments have been accounted for.

People who access a high number of urgent payments will also be offered personalised support. This could include referrals to financial counselling services or to social work services, as well as alternative payment arrangements like weekly payments and Centrepay.

The government has increased funding for frontline emergency relief and financial wellbeing services by 25 per cent. These services are a lifeline when people are doing it tough.

And we've expanded our No Interest Loans Scheme, with more than $48 million over five years supporting people and families on low incomes. This gives them access to safe, fair loans with no interest, no fees and no charges. Every year, around 25,000 of these loans help Australians cover essential expenses without falling into debt traps. Making sure that people who are frequently making use of urgent payments know about these services and are able to use them is an important way of helping people manage their money longer term.

Finally, the bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 to clarify the legal basis for the operation of employment income attribution provisions, which support the determination of a person's rate of social security payment.

In particular, these amendments will clarify that these provisions apply to the employment income of a social security recipient's partner, for the purposes of income testing that recipient, and that the provisions apply at any time employment income is being assessed for the purposes of working out a recipient's rate of pension or benefit.

These amendments will uphold long-established policy intent and practice. They will ensure that there is no ambiguity around how employment income, particularly partner income, should be assessed when determining a recipient's rate of payment.

Together, the amendments in this bill improve the fairness and effectiveness of our social security safety net and ensure that there is legislative clarity in how the social security system supports people when they need it most.

Debate adjourned.