Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not know whether Senator Bishop was a lawyer in a former life, but if he were I can see why he is now in the Senate and not at the bar somewhere or working as a solicitor, because I have never heard such a load of dross in my entire life. Let us examine briefly section 53 of the Constitution. It says:

Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate.

It is very clear. Does this bill passed last night by the Senate impose taxation? What is it taxing? Is it taxing cars, haircuts or plane trips? Is it taxing anything? It is, of course, taxing nothing. Therefore, it is not a bill imposing taxation. Is it a bill which appropriates revenue or money? Maybe, according to Senator Bishop, it is, but not according to the advice which the Senate has received from the Clerk. I quote into the record what that advice says:

A bill to increase the rate of age pensions does not need to contain an appropriation of money.  Age pensions, and other entitlements under the Social Security Act 1991, are automatically paid under a special appropriation of indefinite duration and unlimited amount in section 242 of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.  Any increase in pensions is paid for under that appropriation without any necessity for any further appropriation to be made.

That is absolutely and abundantly clear. I am not rising in this take note debate to debate the legislation and the constitutional basis on which it is moved, because I sit here and I cannot help but wonder what ordinary Australians, particularly senior Australians who are in receipt of age pensions, would think about the tenor of this debate.

These people are not interested in a constitutional debate about whether the Senate does or does not have power to pass such legislation, because these people believe—no, these people know—that the Australian parliament has the ability to solve the problem that they are facing. It is the problem of having mounting bills, mounting grocery bills, mounting energy costs and increasing costs to fill their cars. They know that these problems are fixable by the Australian parliament or by the Australian government. They look to us to solve that problem.

To demonstrate that we understand the concern that they have, we accept our responsibility to provide a decent standard of living for those Australians who have worked hard to put us and a younger generation in a position of being able to afford a very comfortable standard of living across this nation. They expect us to look after them in their retirement. They cannot go out there and get other jobs to supplement their income or to increase their assets in some way.

The 950,000 single age-pensioner Australians, a group that Senator Crossin described as ‘a very small category of recipients’—it is a strange notion of ‘small’ if you ask me—are dependent on the generosity of the Australian government and the decisions of the Australian parliament as to how their standard of living operates and how much of the wealth of this country they enjoy. It is obvious and patently clear to anybody who has examined these issues, including those senators who took part in the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs inquiry last year and at the beginning of this year, that action on those issues is overdue and urgent. That is why the Senate last night passed legislation to deal with the issue.

It is, frankly, repugnant that today the government should be rising in this place arguing the toss about the constitutional basis on which such action to deal with that issue should proceed. I do not care whether the Senate has the power or not to solve this problem. The elected government of Australia has the power to solve this problem, and it should do so. It should accept that it has a problem because it raised this issue as a problem only in August last year when it moved for this inquiry to be conducted by the Senate community affairs committee into the cost-of-living pressures on older Australians. They understood then that there was an issue and they should understand now when they occupy those benches opposite that that issue has not gone away in the meantime. In fact, it has got much worse with rising costs.

So what are they going to do about it? Forget the constitutional arguments. What are they going to do to fix the problem that older Australians face today? (Time expired)