Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

My apologies for missing the call previously. The Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 before us is not one the Democrats oppose. Many of the measures contained within it will be of benefit to Australians and Australian families. The key issue is not so much what is in the legislation but what is not in it, and what damage has been and is being done to Australian families through other family and community services and social security related legislation in recent times. I have spoken on this a number of times in this chamber, including to some extent earlier today. I will not repeat myself in depth beyond saying that small measures, though welcome, such as are contained in this bill do not negate the overall harm that is being done to tens of thousands of Australians and their children as a direct result of other changes that the government has made.

The different measures such as the one-off raising of the income test free area for the family tax benefit part A, the expanded access to the utilities allowance and allowing access to maintenance income test free areas for previous years are all welcome. The expanded access to the carer payment for carers of a disabled child is also welcome as far as it goes. I think this is an area where a lot more could and should be done to assist carers. The government members of the Senate recently passed a change that reduced the amount of initial payments that many applicants for carers allowance would first receive when they applied for the allowance. That is something that was undesirable. The countermeasure, if you like, of expanding access to carers payment is welcome but it is an example of giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I believe the previous change was not merited; it was simply a bureaucratic measure taken for no reason other than that it could be and it would be a little simpler in an administrative sense. It certainly was not done with the interests of carers in mind.

As I have said in this place a number of times, if there is one group in the community that needs more assistance through income support and other welfare measures it is carers. Carers carry an enormous burden and, by and large, they do not get the level of assistance they need. I do not put all of the responsibility and blame for that on federal governments. There is a case to be made that a number of state governments could be doing a lot better in respite support and other forms of assistance for people with disabilities and their carers. I hope that the current Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth-state disability agreement will enable it to operate more effectively in the way that it should and that it will get better value for money for the taxpayer and particularly for the people that it is intended to help. Of course, carers are inextricably intertwined with many aspects of how that agreement operates.

With legislation like this that contains measures that will provide some assistance to people—and, naturally, it is going to be the case that this legislation will be supported; it is fairly rare for such legislation to be opposed by people in the Senate—we need to ask the question: is this the best targeting of resources? Personally, I am not convinced that expanding access to the large family supplement from families with four or more children to families with three or more children is the best targeting of resources. I am not saying it should not be done, and I am certainly not going to vote against it. However, I do wonder whether that is the best use of taxpayers’ resources, if we are looking at targeting money towards people in need in the community.

I do not agree with providing extra financial incentives for people to have children. I think there are plenty of people in the world, frankly. We do not need to be bribing people to have more of them just to receive extra financial assistance. That should not be interpreted, I hasten to add, as not providing assistance to people with children. But the suggestion that we should be providing extra incentives for people is one that, frankly, I think we can very much do without. The notion that has some carriage lately that women should have an extra child for the country is recycling the old ‘populate or perish’ notion. It is a very simplistic approach to our demographic situation and our future demographics. It is a very simplistic approach to our economy and our society to feel that we need to be doing that. I do not believe we do need to do it. I do not begrudge people who do get that assistance. However, I do not think it is the best targeting of taxpayers’ resources through the welfare system.

Having said that and given the amount of other measures the Senate has to get through today, I will not speak any further. I do think there is a lot more than just the measures in this bill that we need to focus on, and it is those aspects of how that operates that the Democrats will keep paying attention to.