Richard Dowling (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 may carry the word 'technical' in the title, but its purpose is anything but minor. Beneath the fine print, it deals with fairness, accountability and the basic dignity owed to every Australian who has relied on our social security system. Australia's social security system really is one of the most targeted in the world on many measures. It's generous in purpose but it's precise in its delivery. In fact, if you reflect on how targeted it is, the proportion of the funds that flow to the top 20 per cent versus the bottom 20 per cent are 12 to one. That is $12 for every $1 to the bottom 20 per cent. That's targeted. That's fair. Similarly, two-thirds of all government transfers go to the bottom 40 per cent. This demonstrates why it's one of the most targeted systems in the world. Few countries direct such a high share of support to those in the lowest income cohorts.

I turn to the bill. At its heart, it really addresses how employment income was treated for people receiving income tests of payments between 1991 and 2020. For decades, Services Australia and its predecessors used a method known as income apportionment, spreading a person's pay across the period it was earned rather than just the day it was received. That method was intended to reflect the real world, where workers are paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly and their hours do not always line up neatly with the government's pay cycles. But, in recent years, questions arose about whether that approach was technically lawful under the Social Security Act. While the method was widespread, there was a risk that debts and payments assessed using that approach could be challenged. This bill, therefore, provides legal certainty. It validates the longstanding use of income apportionment from 1991 to December 2020, ensuring that Services Australia can continue to apply a fair, consistent and administratively sound system. Importantly—and I stress this point—the bill does not validate the income averaging practices that caused the robodebt scandal. It does not validate that. It draws a clear legal and moral line between legitimate administrative methods and the unlawful data matching and averaging that hurt so many Australians.

The robodebt royal commission showed us what happens when governments stop listening, when compassion is replaced by spreadsheets and when vulnerable Australians are treated as statistics instead of human beings. This bill is part of the Albanese government's ongoing effort to rebuild trust in our social security system. It will make sure that people are treated fairly, that debts are based on fact and that those who have been wronged receive a proper resolution. It also establishes an income apportionment resolution scheme. This is a process that will allow the Commonwealth to make resolution payments to people whose debts were affected by these technical issues. That scheme will apply to debts between September 2003 and December 2020, covering the majority of cases that may have been impacted. The aim is to give clarity and closure, to prevent years of appeals and uncertainty and to resolve matters quickly and fairly.

Beyond these technical changes, the bill takes real steps to make the system more compassionate. The bill standardises and indexes the small-debt-waiver threshold at $250, recognising that chasing very small amounts often costs more than it recovers. This reform has been welcomed by the Australian Council of Social Services, who say:

Reform of the small debt waiver provisions is sensible and improves fairness. Currently, the Commonwealth can recover debts as small as $50, with the small debt waiver provisions having remained the same for over 30 years. Lifting the small-debt threshold is long overdue, not only to reduce stress and hardship experienced by people receiving income support, but to also reduce the administrative burden for Services Australia.

It also expands the special-circumstances-waiver provisions in multiple ways, including where a person is facing domestic or family violence, serious illness or other exceptional hardship. In doing so, it responds to recommendation 58 of the 2024 inquiry of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services into financial abuse, and I congratulate Chair Senator O'Neill for the work of that committee and the report. The special-circumstances-waiver reform has also been welcomed by ACOSS, who said:

Currently, someone who underreports their income to Centrelink because of coercive control and is then found to have a debt, cannot be considered to receive a special circumstances waiver for that debt because the person 'knowingly' gave false information. Part 1 updates this schedule to allow for consideration of other circumstances like coercive control and family and domestic violence that led to falsely reporting income and allows the decision maker to waive a debt that arises in these circumstances.

It's small, incremental reforms like this that make me proud to be a Labor senator within this government. The special circumstances waiver isn't going to apply to millions of Australians, but, for those who it does affect, it impacts them greatly. To those people, the government is saying: we hear you, we see you and we're taking action to help. We're also aligning the provisions across the Social Security Act, the Paid Parental Leave Act and the Student Assistance Act so that, no matter which system you interact with, the same standards of fairness apply and the same standards of compassion apply.

In a similar way, the bill proposes to enable certain Commonwealth payments and concession cards to be cancelled where a person is subject to an outstanding arrest warrant for a serious offence. Currently there are no provisions to cancel an individual's payments or concession card in circumstances where there is a warrant issued for the arrest of the individual with respect to a serious, violent or sexual offence and they are evading arrest by police. I think most Australians would agree that it is inappropriate for these individuals to be in receipt of benefits provided by the Australian government. And I note the advice given by the Minister for Social Services in the other place:

We propose this new power to be used only in the most serious circumstances, and only following a thorough and considered decision-making process.

Some stakeholders have raised concerns about the retrospective elements of this bill, particularly the validation of past administrative practices. That's an important debate, and the government has approached it carefully. Retrospective legislation should always be justified. It should be exceptional. In this case, it's justified to prevent years of uncertainty, to ensure consistent treatment of recipients and to protect individuals from unnecessary distress. Without this bill, tens of thousands of Australians could find themselves trapped in appeals or reviews over technicalities that have no bearing on whether they were entitled to their payments. This legislation closes that door, and it does so transparently, with clear exclusions for any practices found to be unlawful.

The bill complements the broader work we're doing to restore integrity in government through Services Australia reform and through the ongoing implementation of the royal commission's recommendations. It fits squarely within Labor's mission, building a fairer society where no-one is left behind in our social services system. At this point, we should recognise the efforts of the Minister for Government Services, Senator Gallagher, whose leadership has resulted in shorter waiting lists at Services Australia. Shorting waiting times are what it's all about. If people have entitlements, there shouldn't be delays in receiving them and in receiving the help they need to access the entitlements that are lawfully theirs.

The bill may be described as technical, but its effects are deeply human. It offers compassion to those facing hardship or violence, it offers closure to those whose lives have been upended by administrative uncertainty, and, crucially, it draws a line under a shameful chapter in our social security history by reaffirming that the Australian government must always act lawfully and always treat people with dignity. For all these reasons, I commend the bill to the Senate.