Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019. This bill introduces a requirement for people receiving income support payments who are 80 years and over and living overseas permanently for at least two years to provide proof-of-life certificates. It affects people receiving the age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment. This includes people whose payment has an unlimited portability period under the Social Security Act and people receiving a payment under one of Australia's international social security agreements.

This bill requires people to provide proof-of-life certificates once every two years at a minimum. The proof-of-life certificate requires an authorised person to verify that the person is alive. The certificate must be certified by an authorised certifier, which could include a judge, magistrate, medical doctor or authorised consular staff at an Australian embassy, consulate or high commission. Aside from giving these general examples, this bill does not define who can be an authorised certifier. This is left to be clarified in a legislative instrument.

Under this bill, a person has 13 weeks to return a proof-of -life certificate from the date they are given notice by the secretary. If they do not return the certificate or enter Australia within 13 weeks, the income support payment will be suspended for a period of up to 13 weeks. If they fail to comply during the suspension, the income support payment will be cancelled. A person who has had their payment suspended or cancelled is eligible to receive back pay once they provide a proof-of-life certificate. However, they are only eligible to receive back pay for up to 39 weeks.

Firstly, I'm very concerned that people over the age of 80 living overseas are going to struggle to receive their proof-of-life certificate from the department in the mail. What if they changed their address and forgot to notify Centrelink? What if they are incapacitated in a hospital for a long period of time? What if the mail system in their country of residence doesn't work as effectively as the Australian system? I also have strong concerns that Australians aged over 80 will be threatened with payment suspensions and cancellations as a way of enforcing compliance. The bill will subject some very vulnerable people to payment cancellations, all because they are living overseas. The strict 13-week deadline means that pensioners could face hardship as a result of losing their income support payment. The onus shouldn't be on older Australians to prove they are still alive. We should have better ways of keeping track of income support recipients through Centrelink. My office has been assured that there will be no debts raised from people who have had their income support payment cancelled as a result of noncompliance. I would like to ensure that the minister verifies that this is in fact the case.

There are currently around 96,000 Australians receiving income support payments while living permanently overseas, with most of these people receiving the age pension. Some 24,900 are over the age of 80. The government predicts that only 6,000 people over the forwards will be affected by the bill. In the scheme of things, this is a very small number of people to be chasing for some meagre savings to the budget bottom line.

Under current policy the government has two ways of being notified of an income support recipient's death. Firstly, the government relies on the recipient's family to notify them of their family member's death. Secondly, Australia has reciprocal death reporting agreements with countries like the UK, where data on deaths is shared between the two countries. However, it is possible that family members mistakenly believe they are entitled to receive income support payments after the recipient living overseas has died. This is understandable, because in some countries a person's spouse or dependants are entitled to receive payments after the recipient's death. It seems to me that if families are unsure of the rules around payment eligibility, the government should be prioritising a public education campaign for income support recipients overseas and their families, instead of this rather onerous legislation. Instead of putting the onus on older Australians on income support payments living overseas through the proof-of-life certificates, the approach should be one of education and ensuring that processes are in place so that Australia does get that notification.

While the Greens will be supporting this bill, I have some concerns about this approach to target overseas people on income support and how this process could potentially impact them, particularly through the introduction of these rather onerous reporting requirements and compliance measures. The implementation of this legislation should be monitored to make sure that there isn't an inordinate number of people receiving income support payments—age pensioners in particular, because the bulk of these people are age pensioners—who start to drop off income support not because they have passed away but because this system is not working as intended. I will be keeping a close eye on it and seeking from the minister in her summing up statement a response to the issues that I raised for clarification.