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

It won't come as a surprise to people, but the opposition will be supporting the substantive elements of the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022 because this bill actually gives effect to coalition initiatives when the coalition was in government previously.

At a very high level, let me just recap for people that this bill delivers on an election commitment of the former coalition government to increase the income limits for the Commonwealth seniors health card. The coalition at the time understood, as it does today, that that every dollar counts when older Australians are looking to meet what are escalating cost-of-living challenges for them and their families when they're no longer working. Senior Australians have worked very hard to make Australia all that it is today, and the coalition believes it's important that the country takes care of them in return. The coalition commitment is the first major change of indexation to the income threshold of the Commonwealth seniors health card in over 20 years, so we are grateful that the government has adopted the previous government's measure and brought it to the parliament for legislation.

It's worth noting that, during the election, Labor quickly adopted the coalition's policy, and Labor is shamelessly rebranding it as one of its own today. However, now we see the Albanese government has pushed the start date back beyond 1 July, the start date that was announced during their campaign. I think many Australians would see this as yet another Labor broken promise.

What this bill does is shine a light on another very pressing issue in our country at the moment, and one that the government has been slow to respond to. That pressing issue is the rising cost-of-living challenges in our country. That issue is compounded by the fact that there are severe labour shortages across our country. They are two issues compounding and working against each other and making life very difficult for older Australians. This is an opportunity this morning to do more for older Australians than the government is proposing, so I'm foreshadowing that the opposition will be moving amendments to this social security bill to make it easier to incentivise older Australians to go back into the workforce.

Many people will know anecdotally, from walking around their communities, that there are many older Australians who would like to work more but don't do so because the financial system as it currently operates significantly inhibits them from doing that. The amendments that we will be moving to this social security bill will do a number of things, and one is to raise the work bonus limit from $300 to $600 a fortnight. Older Australians and veterans today can only earn up to $300 a fortnight before they face a very harsh tax system that then punishes them for 50c in every dollar they earn over $300. The amendment that the opposition will be moving will lift that to $600 a fortnight, and we believe, as small businesses across the country believe, as associations for older Australians believe, this will be a significant improvement to incentivising this older Australians back into the workforce. Through our amendment, this will be a permanent measure, unlike other initiatives which I'll come to in a moment which are temporary measures. If this amendment is successful, it will be a permanent feature of the Work Bonus system and it will allow older Australians to come back into the workforce and, in doing so, alleviate those very, very real challenges that are being faced by small and medium-sized businesses across the country.

This is not a new issue. In fact, this issue has been top of mind for older Australians and top of mind for businesses for a very, very long time. Last week, the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee heard evidence from a whole variety of organisations across our country that reinforced the fact that more needs to be done by this government to alleviate labour shortage issues across our community and to better incentivise older Australians into the workforce. What does Treasury think about labour shortage issues in our country? Last week, officials from the Treasury said that 'labour shortages currently across the economy are quite severe'. The government's own Treasury officials are saying that labour shortage issues in our country are severe.

A month ago, the government had its Jobs and Skills Summit. Some people criticised it as a talkfest; other people were prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. So why is it that, a month later, this parliament has not yet seen the legislation that was going to give effect to what the government called 'one of its most immediate and urgent initiatives'? Where is it? It may well be that the legislation will appear in the House of Representatives today, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it has taken one whole month for the government to bring forward an initiative that it thinks will improve worker shortages and incentivise older Australians into the workforce.

People have got a right to ask: why is the government dragging its feet when older Australians are living with real cost-of-living challenges now? Why is the government dragging its feet on giving small businesses and medium-sized businesses in our economy the opportunity to hire local older Australians and veterans and start to fix those labour shortage issues immediately? Why are we waiting? By his own admission, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said this week that cost-of-living challenges were skyrocketing. The Treasurer says that cost-of-living challenges in our country are skyrocketing, and, a month after the jobs summit, we still don't have any news of Labor's initiative that would help older Australians back into the workforce and, in doing so, alleviate labour shortage issues. That's why the opposition is stepping forward and is going to seek to amend the government's bill to import a mechanism that will provide cost-of-living relief immediately for older Australians and go some way to meeting those severe labour shortage issues that the Treasury thinks exist. We in the opposition believe that the best, most effective and most timely way to do that is to increase the Work Bonus scheme that currently exists in our social security arrangements by raising it from $300 a fortnight to $600 a fortnight, and we expect that will have a positive impact on attracting older Australians and veterans into the workforce.

Labour shortages in our country are widespread. This is what Grain Producers Australia had to say last week, noting the severe workforce shortages across our country:

We have got a massive pool of very skilled people out there that have … retired and that are willing to come back and help part time. They like job sharing and they don't like really long hours, but they are willing and able to contribute to our economy. If we look at the red tape and the complex superannuation laws and pension earning laws et cetera—

we can find a way to provide a better incentive for them to enter the workforce.

A key benefit of the opposition's initiative is that older Australians living in regional communities will be able to go and work in their regional cafe or petrol station or on their local farm and go some way to alleviating these labour shortage issues across our country. I suspect that the new Labor government are half hearted about giving older Australians the opportunity to enter the workforce and about correcting labour shortage issues in our country, and that's why their initiative from the job summit, which we still haven't seen in the parliament, is temporary and less generous than the coalition's. Wow! This is a bad way to start. The Treasurer is saying cost-of-living issues are real and severe and are skyrocketing. The Treasury is saying that labour shortage issues are severe. Why is the government waiting? The government could take the coalition's initiatives and amendments and put them in their own name, and we would have a partial solution to those issues immediately. We could leave this parliament this evening having given older Australians and small businesses a better solution. I will give way to other coalition senators who I know want to make a contribution, but the challenge now is for the government to step up, act now and provide an immediate solution for older Australians and small businesses.