Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps tomorrow he may wake up in a good mood and Australian families may receive something more, but it is unlikely. What we have also learned is that people may get around this threshold by organising their benefits or their salary to be paid after the six-month deadline so that they can receive the baby bonus and still earn in excess of the cap.

Minister Macklin has stated that, if the income estimate is incorrect and the household actually earns over $75,000 in the six months subsequent to having a baby, then families do not have to worry that a debt will be raised against them because their income changes. However, if they provide false or misleading information then the usual welfare sanctions will apply. I think Minister Macklin is having a bob each way. It demonstrates that the new baby bonus measure will be very difficult to administer and almost impossible to police, yet the new criteria are going to cost a further $22.6 million to administer.

Importantly, this measure was not mentioned by the ALP prior to the election. In fact just before the election, the Labor Party stated in an email from the ALP campaign unit that they ‘have no plans to make any other changes to the way that the baby bonus is structured either in terms of eligibility or payment methods’. What has the government done? It has altered the terms of eligibility and payment methods. It is a case of Mr Garrett being proved right: ‘Don’t worry about what we say before the election; we’ll change it all when we get into government.’ It is simply not good enough. The families of Australia deserve better. They deserve a government that does not go back on its word, a government that tells the truth.

But it does not stop there. This bill also makes changes to voluntary family income management. This measure will allow individuals to volunteer to have their welfare payments placed under an income management regime payment arrangement. This is an important initiative, because it is one that was pioneered by the Howard government during the Northern Territory intervention last year. It has worked pretty well. This is another case of Labor saying ‘me too’—something that occurred many times in last year’s election—and so this measure is in principle a good thing. But I believe—and the coalition believes—that we need to be provided with more detail as to who this will affect and what the scope of the measure will be. In the other place, Mr Abbott suggested that this voluntary income management will only apply to the Kimberley region in northern Western Australia and the Cannington region of outer metropolitan Perth.

This bill will also make it a requirement for claimants of the Commonwealth seniors health card to provide a tax file number when they claim the Commonwealth seniors card. The main aim of this provision is to identify those with income from a superannuation income stream from a taxed source. The opposition is concerned that this measure may adversely affect many older Australians. We are told that about 27,000 people will lose the Commonwealth seniors health card between 1 July 2008 and 30 June 2010. It is also worth noting that the tax file number requirements could be seen as a de facto means test. But 27,000 older Australians are going to be disadvantaged by this requirement.

Whilst the changes to an adjustable taxable income test are not specifically dealt with in this bill, it is worth noting for the Senate that a further 22,000 people will no longer be eligible for the Commonwealth seniors health card under the provisions of a different bill. These people will miss out on much-needed benefits like pharmaceutical benefits, bulk-billing and other allowances because doctors quite often require a Commonwealth seniors health card before they will bulk-bill. It is also likely that more people will be affected by this legislation in the future, given that the department has not modelled—I repeat, it has not modelled—how many people will not be eligible beyond the forward estimates. This is another case of the ALP not showing its hand before the election. The question will always remain how many marginal seat members of the Labor Party and how many other candidates went out there and said, ‘We’re going to start means testing or implementing measures that will further restrict access to Commonwealth seniors health card’? My suggestion is none. The ALP failed to tell the Australian people, especially senior Australians, that this change would take place if they won government. I am happy to be proved wrong on that but I suspect I will not be.

There is another change in this legislation, and that is to the partner service pension. This measure seeks a reduction in access to the partner service pension for partners from the current age of 50, raising the access to the age service pension qualifying age, which is just over 58 years of age for men. The coalition is of the view that veterans and their wives should be treated under the veteran system and not under the social security system. We are concerned that about 930 partners of veterans will be affected by the proposed changes. Nine hundred and thirty people will have their planning and their financial future placed in peril by a heartless Labor government. The savings from this measure are minuscule, but the savings will affect enormously the lifestyle and viability of so many people—930 partners and their families. The government is targeting a very small section of the population. They are altering the benefits to save a few dollars and all the while they are pork-barrelling in their marginal seat electorates, which we have all heard about so much in this chamber. It is simply unreasonable to increase the age limit of this pension so dramatically.

When the Howard government, responsible economic managers, implemented changes to the age pension to lift the age from 60 to 65 it did so gradually. That way people could factor this into their forward planning themselves rather than having their payments, which they rely on, removed quickly and with very little warning. Evidence from the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration states that the government did not consult ex-service organisations about these changes. Once again, this was a measure that was not mentioned by the ALP before the election.

This bill also contains the government amendment to repeal the 2006 legislation that allowed for gross fringe benefits amounts to be counted as income for family payments. This legislation was to come into effect on 1 July 2008. When this was introduced into and passed by parliament in November the ALP supported the package of changes that included this measure. In 2006, FaCSIA, the department, was only aware of the general impact of the changes rather than the impact on particular groups. It must be noted that the government’s current proposed changes to family payments in this 2008 bill actually complement the 2006 changes, because this bill also seeks to increase income that is used to calculate payments and benefits. The coalition will support the government’s intention to introduce amendments to repeal elements of the 2006 legislation to ensure that workers in charitable organisations are not adversely affected by the changes to the treatment of fringe benefits for the purpose of calculating assistance payments.

This legislation will affect thousands of Australians and thousands of Australian families. The recent Senate committee on finance and public administration inquiry discovered that 22,000 Australian families will lose eligibility for the Commonwealth seniors health card, 2,100 will lose access to other pensions or allowances, 12,700 will lose access to family tax benefit A and B, and 18,800 will lose some childcare benefit. The Australian people deserve better than a government that claims to provide them with better benefits and then, once their vote has been cast, seeks to reduce these benefits. Whilst the coalition believe that support for Australian families is of paramount importance, we believe that this government has been dishonest and this will result in fewer benefits for the people who most need them. Accordingly, I move the second reading amendment standing in my name:

At the end of the motion, add:

“but the Senate:

(a)

condemns the Rudd Government for its failure to provide a taper rate with the introduction of the means test on the baby bonus; and

(b)

records its concern at the government’s decision to impose a means test on the family tax benefit Part B”.