Let me start with schedule 1, advance payments. For people across Barton in Hurstville, Kingsgrove, Rockdale, Kogarah, Bexley and Carlton, advance payments are often the difference between meeting a large, unavoidable cost and falling behind. Car registration, school shoes and uniforms in January, a fridge that finally gives out—these are the moments advance payments are designed for. It is a lump sum drawn against the person's own entitlement, repaid gradually through small deductions from future payments.

Nationally, around 2.7 million advance payments were granted in the last financial year alone. That is an enormous number of Australians relying on this mechanism. In an electorate as diverse and multiculturally rich as Barton, where so many households are juggling multiple jobs and caring responsibilities and the rising costs in Sydney, I have no doubt advance payments are a lifeline for many local families.

This bill removes outdated legislative provisions, including a requirement for Services Australia to be satisfied that repayments won't cause hardship. This is a test that no longer reflects how advance payments are actually assessed and delivered today. It also aligns mobility allowance advance arrangements with the rest of the system. Without these changes, people would be pushed back onto phone queues and in-person appointments just to get an advance assessed—longer wait times, more stress and delayed support for people who often can't afford to wait.

Schedule 2 deals with something that matters enormously to anyone who has practised before a tribunal. At present, if Services Australia or the Department of Social Services identifies new information relevant to a decision that is already before the second tier of the Administrative Review Tribunal or the Guidance and Appeals Panel, they cannot act on it. That means a person in Earlwood or Bexley who has provided updated information that might resolve their case in their favour sooner could be stuck waiting for a review process to run its full and often lengthy course, even when the department itself agrees the decision should change. This bill fixes that. It allows the decision to be corrected so that the tribunal reviews the most accurate and most current version of a person's circumstances rather than a stale snapshot.

When we reflect on schedules 3, 4 and 5, they all turn on what is called pre-issue income data, which is a person's self-assessed taxable income drawn from their tax return before the Australian Taxation Office formally finalises their notice of assessment. For 99.8 per cent of people, this figure doesn't change once the final assessment is issued. This is a remarkably high degree of accuracy, and it means Services Australia can use this data with confidence to reconcile family tax benefit and childcare subsidy payments and to administer child support assessments without waiting months for a final tax outcome.

For the parents dropping their kids at long-day-care centres around Hurstville and Rockdale, juggling childcare subsidy alongside work and family life, getting that subsidy calculation right and getting it right earlier means fewer nasty surprises, fewer families discovering well after the fact that they've been overpaid and now owe money back, and fewer families underpaid and left short in the meantime. It matters just as much for child support. I think of the single parents in my community waiting on child support payments to arrive so they can pay the rent or put dinner on the table. Faster, more accurate income data means more and more accurate payments sooner, fewer retrospective adjustments and less debt chasing on both sides. It also protects the tax refund interception process, which recovers around $41 million in unpaid child support owed to children every year. That belongs to kids, not adults who have fallen behind their obligations.

I'll take you through schedule 6, which responds directly to a systemic issue identified by the Administrative Review Tribunal that automated decisions to offset a person's tax refund against a family tax benefit debt currently carry no merits review pathway. In practice, that has meant some of these offsetting decisions were effectively irreversible, even in cases where a person was experiencing genuine hardship. This bill fixes that gap, and it gives the department the power to exclude cohorts of recipients experiencing hardship from offsetting altogether.

I want to flag something I feel strongly about here. In my work of advocacy, I've heard from families in Barton dealing with the fallout of family and domestic violence, including coercive financial control, particularly during my time working at St Vincent de Paul Society and connecting with local services, such as Kogarah Storehouse and St George Family Support Services. Since December last year, more than 500 social security and family payment debts nationally have been waived where family and domestic violence was recorded. This is meaningful progress, but it only works if the review architecture around it is sound, and this schedule strengthens that architecture.

Schedule 7 fixes a technical but important issue with how a person's paid parental leave superannuation contribution is calculated when the employer paid leave is later adjusted. This sits alongside one of the changes that I'm pretty proud of as part of this government since last year. Superannuation is now paid on government paid parental leave. For new parents in Barton taking that full six months of leave, receiving over $1,000 a week and having their retirement savings protected while they're caring for a newborn, this is exactly the kind of structural fairness that closes this gap, particularly the gender retirement gap, that has disadvantaged women in this country for way too long.

Finally, schedule 8 aligns the legislative framework for urgent payments with how Services Australia actually delivers them today, cutting down the number of calls a person in crisis needs to make just to get help fast, and schedule 9 makes minor but necessary corrections by fixing cross-references to the definition of 'granny flat interest' in the Social Security Act and clarifying review rights for debt-recovery decisions made under the resolution scheme.

None of these schedules will make the front page of the news, but in the electorate of Barton, home to one of the most multicultural communities in the country, where families are often supporting each other across generations, across borders, where a shiftworker in Rockdale might also be caring for an elderly parent and raising two kids on family payments, these technical fixes are the support that keeps the family net standing. When the support works, nobody notices. Where it doesn't, people fall through the cracks.

This bill builds on the substantial improvements this government has already delivered. JobSeeker increased by more than $4,300 a year for a single recipient. Commonwealth rent assistance is up by 50 per cent since 2023. More than 200,000 single principal carers are benefiting from changes to the parenting payment eligibility, and the family tax benefit is lifting more than $1,500 a year for families with a teenager.

These are really meaningful reforms that ensure that families—the people that live in my electorate of Barton and across this country—can actually live with dignity whilst we build the social conditions for hope. I'm very proud to say that this Labor Albanese government aspires to make real change that Australians will feel in their lives.

I rise to speak very briefly to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026. Amongst other changes, this bill strengthens the legislative basis for the automation of a series of social security payments. Now, this is not a bad thing. These are payments that, for example, allow for advance payments of a person's social security or family assistance entitlements.

Automation can allow for faster processing and delivery at scale, but it is a bit ridiculous that the Albanese government is proceeding with an agenda of automation when it still has not actioned two key recommendations of the Robodebt royal commission. I want to share those with you. Recommendation 17.1 said:

The Commonwealth should consider legislative reform to introduce a consistent legal framework in which automation in government services can operate.

Where automated decision-making is implemented:

Recommendation 17.2 of the Robodebt royal commission said:

The Commonwealth should consider establishing a body, or expanding an existing body, with the power to monitor and audit automate decision-making processes with regard to their technical aspects and their impact in respect of fairness, the avoiding of bias, and client usability.

Now, the government says all the right things about Robodebt. It's told us that it will never let something like that happen again, that it was shocking oversight and negligence on behalf of the coalition. But what has the Albanese government actually done to make it less likely? It most certainly has not introduced any legislative rules around the use of automated decision-making in government, despite these recommendations of the royal commission. Now we're seeing the real repercussions of unregulated automation in the aged care sector and the NDIS. We've seen something recently on Four Corners about the level of community concern there is about that.

We've been waiting for years for action on this. It's not good enough. Before it continues its agenda of automating government services, the Albanese government must legislate a mandatory framework for automated decision-making in government incorporating transparency requirements, human oversight of high-risk decisions, meaningful review rights and independent oversight.

I'll continue to fight for this because it's vital for the efficiency of government. It's vital for trust in our government and for the safe and trusted delivery of some of the most important social services, like the NDIS, aged care, social security and beyond. That is why I'm moving a second reading amendment to this bill, as circulated in my name, that would encourage the parliament to actually pass a bill to incorporate this sort of mandatory framework that was recommended by the royal commission:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) this bill paves the way for the automation of a series of social security decisions;

(b) when used well, automated decision-making can deliver faster, more consistent and more efficient government services; and

(c) the government has still not legislated a mandatory framework for automated decision-making in government, despite the recommendation of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme; and

(2) calls on the government to legislate a mandatory framework for automated decision-making in government, incorporating transparency requirements, human oversight of high-risk decisions, meaningful review rights and independent oversight, to prevent a repeat of the failures of the Robodebt Scheme".

Is the motion seconded?

I rise to second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Between 2015 and 2019, the Commonwealth told 433,000 Australians that they owed it money that they did not owe—around $1.7 billion worth. It arrived at those figures by taking a person's annual income and spreading it evenly across fortnights that they had not worked, which is not how anybody's working life has ever functioned. Then it put the onus on them to prove otherwise. The Federal Court found there was no proper legal basis for it. A royal commission called it 'a crude and cruel mechanism' and found it had been known to be inconsistent with social security law from the beginning.

We all know that was not a computer error. The choices were, sadly, made by people, some of whom sit opposite, to reverse the onus so that a person had to prove that they did not owe a debt, to remove the humans who used to check and to send the letters anyway after being warned. Every one of those choices flowed from a single assumption about who was on the other end of them—that that person receiving a Centrelink payment was probably rorting the system, that the risk worth managing was not the risk of ruining someone's life but the risk of someone getting away with something.

We know that they were not rorting the system. They were cleaners, cooks, delivery drivers, disability support workers, students, carers and a great many people who were working the whole time, but their hours moved around because that is what work looks like for millions of Australians. The system they were dealing with, however, was built for a world where a person simply had one job with the same shifts every fortnight. They weren't rorting anyone; they were just trying to stay afloat.

It did not appear out of nowhere. This was under a coalition government whose then Treasurer told the country that there were 'lifters' and there were 'leaners', a coalition government that came into this place proposing Australians under 30 should wait six months with no income before they could get any support, a coalition government that put people on a card that told them where they could spend their own money and a coalition government that dragged parents of small children into a compulsory program under threat of losing their payment.

I raise these examples not to score a point but because you cannot fix the machinery of government until you name the assumption it was built on, and that unfair and inaccurate assumption is still in this building. There are people in this parliament—and One Nation are the clearest about it—who think the real problem with social security is the character of the people receiving it, who back drug testing income support recipients and quarantining 80 per cent of their money onto a card and who talk about the safety net as though the risk we should be worrying about is that somebody undeserving might touch it. They have never explained why the same test is never proposed for someone receiving any other government concession.

What makes this position from them and others deeply disturbing is we can all recite moments in our electorate offices where a woman who could not sleep has gone through a debt letter, line by line, that makes no sense to her and who's scared. She is not a 'leaner' or a rorter. She is a cleaner whose hours move around or a single mum of three just trying to stay afloat. She, like so many people, comes into our offices because the system has let her down, not the other way around.

It took a royal commission to put the truth on the record and to highlight to our country the experiences of our most vulnerable and what happens when compassion and empathy are removed from government policy. A royal commission alone cannot fix the law. That has taken four bills in two years, each one going through the statute, line by line, and repairing the places where it does not say what everybody assumed it said. This is the next of them.

Much of what this bill does is described as resolving legal and compliance issues. In practice, that means the law has fallen behind the way these systems actually operate, and in some places it no longer clearly authorises what people have long assumed it authorises. Schedule 6 is one of them. Where a family has a family tax benefit debt, a tax refund can be applied against it automatically and, until now, there has been no way to have that decision reviewed. The Administrative Review Tribunal identified this as a systemic issue. Without merits review an automated offset against a family in hardship could not afterwards be undone. This bill fixes that. Schedule 6 makes those decisions reviewable, bringing them into line with almost every other decision in the family payment system, and it lets the department exclude cohorts experiencing hardship from offsetting altogether. In some cases, the money is never taken and nobody has to appeal anything at all.

I do not think those opposite were incapable of drafting this legislation. I think that, for a decade, they were solving a different problem to this one. If the question you are asking yourself is how to stop people rorting the system, you don't go looking for places where the system quietly takes money off people who cannot afford to lose it. You are not looking in that direction. That is only a problem worth finding if you think those people are entitled to the money in the first place. Once you accept that people are entitled, you build the machinery differently. You put reviews in, because sooner or later you will be wrong about someone. You put waivers in, because circumstances differ and always have. You build self-service, because people have jobs and kids and no interest in explaining how their household budget to a stranger.

Every member in this House deals with this system every week. Our offices are where it turns up when it goes wrong. And I would say the staff who do the work see more of how the safety net actually functions than any of us do. What they see is that people aren't trying to try it on; they are trying to keep up with a system that changes their entitlement when their hours change, and most of them are doing it while working.

You can see it most clearly in the part of this bill that will affect the most people. An advance payment is not extra money; it is a person's own entitlement brought forward as a lump sum, repaid through small deductions from future payments. And it exists because life delivers big bills in one hit, and income support does not. There's rego, back to school or a fridge that dies. In 2024-25 around 2.7 million advance payments were granted. People get them now on their phone, after the kids are asleep, without asking anyone for anything. There was a time when the way you got access to your own money early was to front up in person and explain your household budget to a stranger across a counter. I don't think we appreciate how much that costs a person who is already having a hard year.

Schedule 1 is what keeps the current arrangement lawful and working. Without it, it involves a phone call in business hours or a drive to a service centre and a queue, and the money arrives later than needed. A late payment is not just an inconvenience. We know what a late payment means. We know it's a car rego that lapses, a doctor's visit put off or a shift you cannot get to because there's no fuel in the car.

Schedule 1 does the same for urgent payments, which in practice means fewer calls a person has to make to get the help they are already entitled to. Single mums carry more of the system's delay than anyone. A child support system cannot be made properly until both parents' incomes are known. So when one income is not yet available, she has to wait. Again, we know that while she is waiting, technically on an administrative outcome, she's actually waiting on groceries and a way to pay rent.

Schedules 3 to 5 let Services Australia use pre-issue income data—the income in a lodged tax return—before the commissioner's formal notice of assessment, which is the same figure in almost 99 per cent of cases. That's instead of sitting on its hands until the paperwork catches up. That means the right assessment comes sooner. Fewer back payments are chased months later, and there's less debt collection, which matters at both ends.

The tax refund interception process alone recovers $41 million a year in child support owed to children, and it sits alongside what this government has already done for those women. Coercive debt, where a partner's control produces a social security debt in her name, can now be waived under the expanded special circumstances provisions. And, since December, more than 500 deaths have been waived where family and domestic violence was recorded. Coercive debt is abuse run through our social security system, and we have started treating it as such.

Then think about who an automated debt letter actually lands on hardest. In an electorate like mine, a letter in formal English about the reconciliation of an entitlement is unnecessarily cruel because so often it is the thing that kids get asked to translate in the kitchen. There are homes in Flemington and Kensington where this has happened more times than any of us would want to count.

Every measure in this bill that keeps a payment accurate the first time or let somebody sort out in advance on their phone rather than by ringing a call centre and working through a menu in a second language is worth more to those families than it looks on paper. And schedule 3 gives proper legal basis to the way Services Australia already handles people who are not required to lodge a tax return at all, many of whom are on the lowest incomes in the country. Older women are the people past governments have been the worst at noticing. Women over 55 are among the fastest-growing groups of Australians experiencing homelessness. They are the generation who did the unpaid care, came back part time and arrived at 60 with a superannuation balance that did not reflect their quiet service to this country. Schedule 9 corrects a cross-reference in a note about granny flat interests in the Social Security Act. It concerns the rule that decides how an older person is assessed when they hand over their money or their house to move in with a family, one of the most consequential financial decisions many older women ever make and one where the law should be stated exactly right.

And then there is the paid parental leave superannuation change in schedule 7, which is for the other end of that same life. Super started being paid on paid parental leave last year, and the whole purpose of it is to stop the retirement gap opening the moment a woman has a child. Schedule 7 makes sure that, when an employer's payment is later adjusted, the contribution is still worked out correctly. This is a pretty big change, and it matters because superannuation only does its job if the contributions are right. For women of her mother's generation, they were wrong for 40 years.

Underneath all of it is the argument that I think matters most: a social security system is not only a transfer of money; it is a promise, and its value depends on whether people believe it. When they do not—when they think the thing is arbitrary or that a letter could arrive demanding money they do not have with no-one to talk about it—they stop claiming what they are entitled to. They wait until things get far worse before they ask for help. That costs this country in the plainest economic terms because the reason we build a safety net is not only compassion; it is that people take useful risks when they know something is underneath them. They retrain. They leave the job that is grinding them down to find another that lifts them up. They leave a relationship that is not safe. They start something. Every one of those decisions gets easier when a person is confident the system will hold and harder when they have been taught to be afraid of it. Trust like that is not restored with one announcement. It is restored by the unglamorous work of making the thing operate properly, which is what four bills in the last two years and nine schedules in this one actually amount to.

So there are advances secured and kept where people can reach them at any hour of the day, urgent payments aligned with the way people actually contact the agency, appeals so the tribunal reviews the decision as it stands rather than a version everyone knows is out of date, pre-issue income used so children get the right money sooner, automatic offsetting reviewable at last and of course paid parental leave superannuation calculated properly.

This bill, like those before, it, does not fix everything, and our government is not pretending otherwise. It does not repay the sleep lost by women who opened a letter they did not understand and had no-one to ring. It does not undo what was done to 433,000 people, and nothing that this parliament passes ever will. What it does is make sure a mother waiting on child support gets the assessment built on what the other parent actually earned this year, not next year. It means a family that does not easily deal in English gets the payment that is right the first time. Instead of a letter that ruins a fortnight. And it means that, when the system automatically takes a household tax refund, the household can finally ask a real human being to look at it again. None of this is complicated. Get the law right, and the system does what the parliament always meant it to do. Get it wrong, and people who can least afford it wear the difference? Our government is determined to get it right. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise to speak in support of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026, and I want to begin with a story from an older Melburnian who contacted my office earlier this year. He was approaching 80 years of age. He had recently lost his wife after a long illness. Like many families going through something like that, there had been medical costs, funeral expenses and all of the pressures that come with caring for somebody through a serious illness. Months earlier, he had lodged an application relating to his pension, but he still had no answer. He did not know how much longer he would need to wait.

Eventually, he contacted my office asking for help. After we raised the matter with Services Australia, the application was resolved and he received both his pension and the back payment he was entitled to receive. What has stayed with me is not simply the outcome; it was a reminder that, behind every application, every assessment and every process, there is a real person trying to navigate a difficult period in their life. When someone is dealing with illness, caring responsibilities, the loss of a loved one or financial uncertainty, they are not thinking about legislative provisions, technical amendments, review mechanisms or administrative processes. They simply need the system to work.

Since coming to government, the Albanese Labor government has been focused on strengthening Australia's social security system and ensuring it remains fair, accessible and responsive to the needs of Australians. We understand that social security is more than a set of payments; it is one of the foundations of Australia's social safety net. Labor believes that support should be there when people need it. Support should be accessible, fair and delivered with dignity.

The Albanese Labor government has already acted to strengthen that support. Since coming to government in 2022, we have increased working-age and student payments, we have expanded eligibility for parenting payments, we have delivered substantial increases to Commonwealth rent assistance, we have strengthened paid parental leave and we have worked to restore confidence in the system Australians rely upon. This is not just about the payment rates themselves. It is about whether people can access support in a reasonable way. It is about whether decisions are made properly. It is about whether review rights are clear. It is about whether government services are working for the people who rely on them.

This bill is another part of that work. It is not a headline-grabbing reform. It is not about creating an entirely new payment or redesigning the social security system. Rather, it is about making sure the system Australians already rely upon continues to operate effectively, fairly and as parliament intended, because, when systems are operating properly, people receive support sooner. When legislation reflects the way services are actually delivered, people encounter fewer barriers. When review processes are fair and accessible, people can have confidence in decisions that affect their lives. That is what this bill helps to achieve. and it is important work for communities like mine.

In Melbourne, more than 7,200 people receive the age pension, more than 4,400 people receive the disability support pension, nearly 7,800 people receive JobSeeker, thousands of local families rely on family tax benefit and more than 10,000 people hold a healthcare card. The social security system forms part of everyday life for thousands of people across my community. For many people in Melbourne, these payments help keep a roof over their head. They help pay the rent. They help cover food costs, medicine, school costs, transport and bills. They help people get through hard periods without being left behind. When we are debating legislation relating to social security, family assistance and child support, we are debating systems that directly affect thousands of Melburnian residents.

One of the key objectives of this bill is ensuring support remains accessible and easy to use. A good example is the change relating to advance payments. Advance payments are a practical form of support that many Australians already rely upon. They enable eligible recipients to access part of their entitlement as a lump sum and repay it through small deductions from future payments. For somebody facing a large expense such as school costs, replacing an essential household item or paying their car registration, an advance payment can make an enormous difference. In 2024-25, around 2.7 million advance payments were granted. That figure alone demonstrates how important this option is.

The changes before the House provide legislative certainty for the current administration of advance payments. Without these changes, more people would need to call Services Australia or attend service centres to have applications assessed. That would increase delays, increase waiting times and make it harder for people to access support quickly. Labor believes government services should reduce barriers, not create them. The ability to access an advance payment online may sound like a small thing, but, for someone facing an urgent bill, it can be the difference between getting through the week and falling further behind. This legislation helps avoid that outcome. It is practical reform that improves access to support.

The bill also contains important reforms related to the use of income information. While this might sound technical, the impact is very real. The legislation enables Services Australia to use pre-issued income data supplied by the Australian Tax Office for family tax benefit, childcare subsidy and child support purposes. Using this information earlier means payments can be recalled sooner, assessments can be updated sooner and support can be provided using the most up-to-date information available. It is good administration. It improves accuracy, it improves efficiency and it helps ensure people receive the right support at the right time. It also supports families who rely on a family tax benefit and the childcare subsidy. This year, more than 1.2 million families with children will benefit from increases to the family tax benefit. When the government delivers support for families, the systems behind that support need to operate properly, too.

Another constituent who contacted my office reminds us why fairness and review rights are so important. This individual had been seeking a review related to a pension matter. The review process had been underway for a considerable period. During that time, financial pressures continued to grow. The person believed they had missed out on support they were entitled to receive and simply wanted a fair outcome. Eventually, after further engagement between my office and Services Australia, the review was finalised and the constituent received a substantial back payment of pension entitlements. Again, that stands out as not only the final outcome but the importance of ensuring people have confidence in review processes—confidence that decisions are being reconsidered, confidence that new information can be taken into account and confidence that systems are capable of delivering their outcomes. That is why the review measures contained within this legislation are important.

The bill includes amendments relating to family tax benefit decisions before the Administrative Review Tribunal. These amendments allow decisions to be altered when new or previously unconsidered information becomes available so that review bodies are considering the most up-to-date version of a decision. The bill also introduces important reforms relating to family tax benefit debt. These amendments establish review arrangements relating to decisions to offset tax reforms against family tax benefit debt. Importantly, they also create mechanisms that can assist where hardship issues arrive. These changes respond to issues identified through tribunal processes and strengthen confidence in the fairness of the system.

The bill also contains important improvements to the child support system. Child support arrangements play a critical role in supporting Australian children. Parents need confidence that assessments are timely. They need confidence that calculations are accurate, and children should benefit from a system that operates efficiently. The amendments relating to child support income information and provisional income support those objectives by ensuring Services Australia can continue using information necessary to make accurate and timely assessments.

The legislation also includes amendments relating to paid parental leave super. These changes ensure that super contributions connected to paid parental leave are calculated correctly where adjustments occur after payments have been made through an employer. This builds on one of the most significant reforms this government has delivered for working families. The Albanese Labor government has expanded paid parental leave to a full six months. We have made it more flexible for families and we have started paying super on paid parental leave, helping reduce the retirement income gap that affects many working parents. Families accessing the full entitlement can now receive almost $30,000 through the scheme, more than double what was available before Labor came to government. Having delivered those reforms, it is important that the underlying systems are operating correctly. Parents should have confidence that super connected to their paid parental leave is calculated accurately and paid as intended.

The bill also includes reforms related to urgent payments. These changes align legislation with current service delivery arrangements and help reduce the number of times people need to contact Services Australia. That is another example of our government making services easier to use. People should not face unnecessary barriers when trying to access support, and government systems should be designed around the needs of the people who rely on them.

Across all of these measures, there is a common theme. This bill is about trust. Trust that social security systems are operating properly. Trust that family assistance payments are administered fairly. Trust that children's support arrangements are accurate. And trust that government services are capable of responding to people's circumstances effectively. In recent years, the government has worked to identify and resolve these issues. This legislation is another step in that process. It is careful work; it is detailed work; it is important work. As representatives, we are responsible for not only creating new programs and new policies but also ensuring that systems Australians rely upon continue to work properly. The Albanese Labor government has strengthened support for families, pensioners, renters, carers, parents and people looking for work. This bill helps make sure the systems that deliver that support are accurate, accessible and fair.

As I prepared for this debate, I found myself thinking again about those two constituents, the older Australian who had recently lost his wife and was waiting for certainty about a pension application and the constituent who spent a long time waiting for the outcome of a review before finally receiving the support they were entitled to receive. Neither contacted my office asking for legislation reform. Neither contacted my office asking for technical amendments. They contacted my office because they needed a system that worked, a system that was fair, a system that was accessible, a system that was accurate and a system they could trust. Ultimately, that is what this bill is about. Behind every schedule in this bill are real Australians—people raising children, people caring for family members, people living with disabilities looking for work and people relying on child support. They deserve systems that operate as parliament intended and deliver support when it is needed. This bill helps ensure that happens, and for that reason I commend the bill to the House.

I understand the member for Pearce would like to present a copy of her speech for incorporation into Hansard, in accordance with the resolution agreed to on 6 November 2025.

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I would like to support this bill and to speak in favour of the practical, careful and necessary work it represents in strengthening Australia's social security, family payments and child support systems. At its heart, this legislation is about something very simple but very important: trust—trust that when Australians fall on hard times, the system will be there for them; trust that when families need support, it will be delivered fairly and on time; and trust that the rules governing that support are clear, consistent and applied with integrity. Without that trust, even the most well-funded system loses its legitimacy in the eyes of the people it is designed to serve. We know that trust was deeply shaken in years past. We saw what happens when systems drift away from fairness and accountability—when automation overrides common sense and when people are treated as problems to be managed, rather than Australians to be supported.

The Albanese Labor Government has taken a different approach. Since 2022, we have worked methodically to rebuild a social security system that is fairer, easier to access and more responsive to the real lives of Australians. We have increased payments, expanded eligibility and improved support for families, carers, pensioners and jobseekers. We have increased the annual single rate of JobSeeker by more than $4,300 a year through a combination of targeted increases and regular indexation—providing meaningful, ongoing support to Australians doing it tough. We have delivered significant increases to Commonwealth Rent Assistance, with maximum rates rising by more than 50 per cent through real increases in 2023 and 2024, alongside indexation—recognising the very real pressures of housing costs.

We have broadened eligibility for parenting payment single, supporting around 200,000 single principal carers since September 2023—ensuring that more parents, particularly single mothers, have access to the support they need during critical stages of their children's lives. We have strengthened family payments, with over 1.2 million families benefiting from indexation increases to the family tax benefit. For many families, that has meant more than $1,500 extra each year compared to when we came to government—real help with the cost of raising children.

We have expanded the Paid Parental Leave scheme in a way that is both practical and transformative. Parents can now access up to six months of paid parental leave, with payments of more than $1,000 per week. Families accessing the full entitlement receive close to $30,000—more than double what was available before. And importantly, since 1 July last year, superannuation is now paid on paid parental leave—an important reform that helps reduce the retirement income gap, particularly for women. We have also ensured that around one million pensioners, carers and disability support recipients can earn more and hold more assets before their payments are affected, giving people greater flexibility and security. Each of these measures reflects a commitment to fairness and adequacy.

But fairness is not only about how much support is provided; it is also about how that support is delivered. A system that is generous but confusing, or well funded but poorly administered, will not deliver the outcomes Australians deserve. That is why this bill matters. Alongside these investments, we have been doing the less visible work—the technical, legislative and administrative reforms that ensure the system actually functions as it should. This bill is part of that work. It may be described as technical, but its impact is anything but abstract.

These changes affect how quickly a single parent receives child support, how accurately a family's payments are calculated and how easily someone can access help when they need it most. In my electorate of Pearce, I hear regularly from people who rely on these systems—not as a first resort but as a safety net. I think of the single mum in Butler juggling part-time work and school drop-offs, who cannot afford delays in her family tax benefit. I think of older residents in suburbs such as Yanchep and Tapping, carefully managing their finances on the pension as the cost of living rises. And I think of families in Alkimos and Banksia Grove navigating child care, work and the rising costs of raising children.

For these Australians, the difference between a system that works smoothly and one that does not is not a minor inconvenience; it can mean the difference between stability and stress. That is why the measures in this bill are so important.

One of the key changes relates to the use of pre-issue income data. In plain terms, this allows Services Australia to use income information provided by the Australian Taxation Office before a formal notice of assessment is issued. That might sound like a small administrative change, but its effect is significant. For 99.8 per cent of people, their income information does not change once a notice of assessment is issued. By allowing this data to be used earlier, families can have their payments assessed and updated sooner. That means fewer delays, fewer unexpected debts and fewer stressful reconciliations months down the track. For parents relying on child support, it means more accurate payments delivered more quickly. And we know just how important that is. Through mechanisms like tax refund interception, around $41 million in unpaid child support is recovered each year—money that goes directly towards supporting Australian children. Timeliness in these payments is not a luxury; it is essential.

The bill also makes important changes to advance payments—those lump sum payments that allow people to access part of their entitlement upfront and repay it over time. Advance payments are widely used, with approximately 2.7 million granted in the 2024-25 financial year alone. They provide crucial flexibility for people facing unexpected costs, whether it is a car repair, a rental bond or urgent household expenses. By modernising and clarifying the legislative framework, this bill ensures that people can continue to access these payments without unnecessary barriers while maintaining consistency across the system. Again, this is about making the system work in a way that reflects how people actually live.

The bill also strengthens the operation of the child support system, ensuring assessments are timely, accurate and fair, because child support is not just a financial arrangement; it is about the wellbeing of children. When payments are delayed or inaccurate, it is children who ultimately feel the impact.

Importantly, the bill also improves review processes and legal clarity for family payment recipients. Navigating government systems can be complex, particularly for people already under pressure. By streamlining appeals through the Administrative Review Tribunal and clarifying obligations around reconciliation and reporting, this bill reduces unnecessary administrative burden—not just for government but for individuals as well. It is about making the system easier to understand, easier to navigate and fairer in its outcomes.

Another important aspect of this bill is its contribution to protecting vulnerable Australians. We know that, for victims-survivors of domestic and family violence, interactions with the social security system can be particularly challenging. Debt, reporting requirements and administrative processes can become sources of additional stress or even tools of coercion. That is why the government has expanded access to debt waivers in cases of family and domestic violence. Since December 2025, more than 500 social security and family payment debts have been waived where family and domestic violence was recorded. We have also increased the small debt waiver threshold for the first time in 30 years to $250, now indexed to $260. It is expected that around 1.2 million debts will be waived or not raised at all in 2025-26 alone. These are practical changes that make a real difference in people's lives, because a fair system must also be a compassionate one.

In considering this legislation, it is important to place it in the broader context of the government's reforms. Over the past two years, the government has passed multiple pieces of legislation to address historical legal and compliance issues in the social security and child support systems. Many of these issues predate this government, but we have taken responsibility for resolving them. Through operational improvements at Services Australia and targeted legislative reform, we are ensuring these systems are up to date, legally sound and functioning as intended. This bill continues that work. It ensures the system is clearer, more consistent and better able to respond to the needs of Australians. It provides the legal certainty that underpins effective administration. And it ensures that support can be delivered in a more streamlined and accessible way. Ultimately, a strong social security system is about more than just payments. It is about providing stability. It is about giving people the confidence to plan, to make decisions and to take opportunities. It is about ensuring that, when people experience setbacks—whether that is job loss, illness, caring responsibilities or unexpected costs—they are supported to get back on their feet.

In Pearce, as in communities right across Australia, people want to contribute. They want to work, to care, to participate and to build better futures for themselves and their families. What they need is a system that backs them in—a system that is there when things go wrong and that steps out of the way when things are going right. This bill helps deliver that balance. It is careful, considered and grounded in the practical realities of administering a complex system that supports millions of Australians. It reflects a government that understands that good policy is not just about announcements. It is about implementation. It is about getting the details right. And it is about restoring and maintaining trust in one of the most important institutions in our country: our social safety net.

For all these reasons, I commend the bill to the house.

I want to thank all the members who have participated in this debate. The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026 strengthens our social security safety net by ensuring there is legislative clarity on how the social security, family payment and child support systems work. It builds on the significant improvements the government has made since the 2022 election, restoring fairness and adequacy for many income support and family payment recipients.

We've raised the rate of working-age and student payments, providing real increases in support for low-income Australians. On 20 September, we'll see those rates rise again. Age and disability support pensions will have increased by $6,502.60 since we came to government. The JobSeeker payment will have increased by $4,737.20 since we came to government. The parenting payment single will have increased by $4,908.80. Those are just some examples. Commonwealth rent assistance maximum rates on 20 September will have increased by over 53 per cent since we came to government because of our real increases in 2023 and 2024, as well as indexation.

We've made sure that support is going to those who need it with our changes to parenting payment single eligibility, which has benefited around 200,000 single principal carers since September 2023. We've led a major expansion to paid parental leave. Our changes mean that new parents have more time. Parents welcoming a new baby will be able to access a full six months of paid parental leave. They'll receive more money. Parents receiving paid parental leave are now receiving over $1,000 a week, and superannuation has been paid since 1 July last year on paid parental leave and more people are eligible. There's more flexibility for mums and dads too. Thanks to Labor's changes, families accessing the full entitlement will receive almost $30,000 across their paid parental leave. That's more than double the entitlement that they received before Labor returned to government. Last year, we started paying superannuation on that leave, which means that the retirement income gap for working parents will also be reduced.

Many speakers on this bill have raised concerns about the child support system. I couldn't agree with them more about the vital need for continuing reform in this area. I am absolutely determined to make the child support system work better for parents and, most importantly, for the children who rely on it. The system currently has loopholes that allow some parents to hide income so they owe less and get away with not paying what they owe. These people are selling their own kids short. That is completely unacceptable. The numbers are staggering. There are currently 200 child support debts over $150,000, and one debt is more than $2 million. In total, there's almost $2 billion of unpaid child support. In keeping with the nature of this present bill before the House, it contains minor technical fixes in schedule 5 that will mean child support payments are updated more quickly when income changes.

But the government has separately announced the most significant reforms to the child support system in decades. This year's budget invests $183 million to make that system safer, easier to navigate and more effective. Our reforms will close loopholes of weaponisation and abuse, will catch people who understate their income, will prosecute people who don't lodge their tax returns in order to evade child support assessments and will go after people who don't pay what they owe, with child support withheld automatically from wages in suitable circumstances and travel bans for anyone with a large child support debt and a history of travel. I will shortly introduce additional distinct child support bills to give effect to these reforms, and I look forward to the support of all members in this parliament.

This bill is part of our routine efforts to ensure the technical elements of our systems are up to date and working effectively. It aims to give Australians confidence in the integrity of our social security system and the supports they rely on. It is a technical bill reflecting the need for regular updates to ensure legislation remains up to date. It enables the efficient and fair administration of payments for the benefit of people who are supported by our systems through a number of measures.

The bill provides a legislative basis for the swift delivery of advance payments. It improves review processes for certain social services decisions before the Administrative Review Tribunal. It clarifies the use of pre-issue income data for the Child Support Scheme, family tax benefit and child care subsidy. It ensures the effective administration of paid parental leave and superannuation payments, and it simplifies the operation of urgent payments in the social security system.

In addition, as the House would be aware, the government has moved an amendment to section 85GA of A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 for the purposes of clarifying how grants related to child care should be made. The Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry into the bill found that there was general support for the measures and recommended the bill be passed.

The Australian government is committed to supporting those most in need. This bill is part of our efforts to ensure continued access to vital sources of support for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Curtin has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for the bill, and message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation for the proposed amendment, announced.