Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to speak to a bill that I introduced to the Senate in the last sitting fortnight, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Pensioner and Veteran Workforce Participation) Bill 2022. It comes hot on the heels of last week's Jobs and Skills Summit, and the only question that people need to ask themselves at the end of this contribution is: why must age pensioners and veterans wait for this initiative? You'll think it a bit of a coincidence that this bill, introduced into the Senate in the last fortnight, replicates—not completely—one of the 36 initiatives that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said deserved immediate attention on Friday afternoon. This private senator's bill is a timely, immediate solution to two challenges that are facing our country. The challenges are real, they're immediate, and they're beginning to hurt. The first of those two challenges is the rising cost of living. There is not a household in our country today that is not experiencing the devastating effect of rising cost-of-living challenges, whether it be food or petrol or interest rates. The other immediate challenge is affecting every small and medium-sized business—indeed, every large business—across our country: in every town, in every city, in every suburb. This bill will go a long way to immediately addressing cost-of-living challenges for age pensioners and veterans and go a very, very long way in meeting the labour shortage challenges being faced by small and medium-sized businesses in every community across our country.

You might like to ask yourself: why, after two days of a jobs and skills summit, can Anthony Albanese, the new Prime Minister, and Jim Chalmers, the new Treasurer, have a grand bargain with big business, big unions and big government, but they can't legislate a grand bargain for age pensioners and veterans today? This bill doubles the Age and Veterans Service Pension Work Bonus Scheme, the amount that can be earned without impacting pension payments, increasing it from $300, as it currently is, to $600 per fortnight, or $1,200 a fortnight for a couple. Working pensioners will also continue to accrue the unused work bonus scheme income up to a $2,800 cap, exempting future earnings for pension income test purposes. Importantly, this bill removes disincentives for working pensioners. Age pensions are currently cancelled where a recipient's total income exceeds the income test for a 12-week period. The pensioner concession card access is subject to this same test and time frame.

Under this bill, pensions will be suspended for up to two years instead, during which time pensioners will undergo a simplified process to resume the pension if their income falls to the prescribed level. Both age and disability support pensioners will be able to keep their pensioner concession card for two years under these circumstances as an acknowledgement of the importance of the concessions that the pensioner concession card offers working pensioners. Pension partners of working pensioners will enjoy the same pension resumption and pensioner concession card arrangements for a two-year period.

Importantly, this bill includes an annual review mechanism requiring a ministerial review to be tabled in parliament on the operation of the amendments and sunsetting of the amendments every 12 months unless determined otherwise by notifiable instruments. That is necessary because we would hope—indeed, this whole parliament would hope—that cost-of-living pressures in our country would ease, and we would hope that labour shortage pressures in our country would also ease. Having a review mechanism makes sure that taxpayers' money gets spent wisely.

You could be excused for thinking that that sounds very much like the idea that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers trumpeted on Friday afternoon. You would be wrong. Labor's plan is less generous. Labor's plan is temporary. Labor's age pensioner and veterans reform initiative for pensioners can earn them an extra $4,000 for this financial year. This is an extra $4,000 on top of the $7,800 that is the maximum income allowed to be earned under the work bonus currently, bringing the maximum under Labor's improved work bonus plan to $11,800. This is an extra $153 on top of the $300 that can be earned every fortnight. The maximum fortnightly earning under Labor's plan is just $453. Labor's plan will allow pensioners to work an extra 4¼ hours every fortnight, or just over two hours every week, before they're financially penalised.

Under the coalition's age pensioner and veterans reform initiative, pensioners can earn an extra $7,800 for this financial year and for future years. This is an extra $7,800 on top of the $7,800 that is the maximum income allowed to be earned under the work bonus currently, bringing the maximum amount that can be earned under the coalition's improved plan to $5,600 a year. This is an extra $300 on top of the $300 that can be earned every fortnight. The maximum fortnightly earning under the coalition's plan is $600. The coalition's plan allows pensioners to work an extra eight hours every fortnight, or four hours every week, before they are financially penalised. Why does Labor, under its plan, want to make age pensioners and veterans worse off than they would be under the coalition's plan?

This bill sits before a Senate committee at the moment. That Senate committee has taken submissions. That Senate committee has not yet had a public hearing, because Labor senators thus far have not made themselves available to participate in a public hearing. Not only did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers bring to the Jobs and Skills Summit, at the eleventh hour, a plan that is worse than the coalition's, but Labor senators don't even want to have a public inquiry into the coalition's plan, because members of the community would realise that Labor's plan lacks generosity, that Labor's plan is temporary.