Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will not be opposing the two measures in this bill today, which is another part of an ongoing range of issues around family payments and government savings. This is one that Labor will be supporting, though it is not an easy decision. We listened to the evidence from a range of organisations and people who wrote into the very short Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiry, where we raised questions about the impact of the changes, particularly on families with lower incomes and about the way the government seems to be targeting family payments as it seeks to make savings. We have considered every element of savings proposals brought forward by the government. We have looked at them individually and also looked at their impact. As this Senate knows, there have been so many proposals on this rather complex area of family payments, which is quite confusing not only to people in the community but also to many of the senators.

The two proposals we have before us in this bill relate to family payments: the portability of the payment and abolition of the large family supplement. Turning to portability first, it refers to families who will be overseas for a period of time. The current system allows for a 56-week period of portability; from the evidence that our committee received, I can say that people considered 56 weeks as particularly generous, although they did not understand why that particular period was initially chosen. The government has brought forward a proposal for that period to be reduced to six weeks, which the committee found that to be a questionable period. The government has indicated that it brings it into line with other payments and signals that family payments are designed to support families in Australia. The Labor Party accepts that rationale, but we are very keen for the minister to have the discretion to consider requests for extensions. We would be uncomfortable if that particular element had not been included in the legislation. The portability of family payments will be for six weeks, but it will still be possible to put up special cases for a range of issues, including that families are caught out overseas with illness. On that basis, we are prepared to accept that part of the government's proposal.

The second proposal concerns the abolition of large family payments, which gave added payment for the fourth child and subsequent children in large families. Concerns were raised in the committee inquiry about the where the major impact of this particular saving would fall. Labor listened carefully to that evidence, and we still believe that, if you are actually taking the difficult decisions around where payments are best targeted, this was an area where we were prepared to support the government.

As we have said before, it is not easy to make these decisions, particularly in an environment where the government consistently attacks the Labor Party for blocking any changes that they bring forward. It is important that we reinforce the notion that we do not automatically block savings proposals that brought before us in this place and that every element is considered carefully on its own merits. We will be asked next week to support another range of government savings measures in the family space, and Labor will be opposing those, because we genuinely believe that the case has not been made that they are effective or reasonable cuts to family payments.

It is also important to note that one of the other issues that has come up in our consideration of the range of proposals put forward by the government is that it seems impossible to have information prepared by the department or the government which looks at the overall impact of the range of changes being put forward. It is very difficult to consider any of the savings packages in isolation, because we need to have some concept of the composite impact of the changes. That is an argument that we will raise consistently in this area. We believe it is critically important that we look at the issues of fairness when considering any payment.

Another important principle is to put people and families first. We need to look at the way families can continue to budget and the way families which are totally reliant on the welfare system can be supported. We heard gut-wrenching evidence in our inquiry last week on the bill the government will introduce next week on another range of cuts. The absolute survival and livelihood of some families depend on the range of income support they receive. Any decision on changes to a payment needs to take into account the pressures imposed on families in certain circumstances. At this point I would like to acknowledge the evidence we received from Children with Disabilities Australia, who consistently raised with us, and I am sure with parliamentarians across the country, the particular concerns of families raising children with disabilities—the added costs, the added pressures and the added demands placed on those families, which often mean deep stresses for those families that are rarely considered when looking at the general area of family payments. People who are raising children with disabilities are recipients of the standard family payments, and every dollar is important when it comes to the expensive special needs these children have. We do ask, as we always do, whether we could as a Senate at some stage get some information from the department about the composite impact of the range of changes being brought forward to families, in particular, as many of the savings elements the government has put forward relate to family payments—family tax benefit A, family tax payment B—and also the range of other welfare payments involved. Also, there is the element of people living in remote areas and the extra support that may be required in the area, as well as the ongoing stresses for single parent families. Again, evidence was brought forward to our committee about the effect of particular elements of family tax benefit changes—particular pressures they can have on single parent families, with the budget process also, with the range of changes that have been made with moving from family payment areas into Newstart and the loss of payment in that way.

They are general comments about the overall area of family payments. We can support the two measures that have come before us in this bill. As always, we say there needs to be ongoing monitoring of the impact on families and continuing modelling about exactly how all the payments work together. On that basis Labor will be supporting the two proposals before us in this bill, but we put on notice that we will continue to scrutinise every element of saving that is brought to us. Certainly, as the government well knows, we are not supporting the bulk of changes that are in the other family payments areas that will come up in future bills. We will continue to oppose those because we do not think they meet the fairness test.