Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have pleasure in speaking to the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 on behalf of the Labor opposition. It implements various 2006 budget measures, certain other measures associated with the 2005 budget and the government’s welfare changes. It also introduces into legislation a new disaster recovery payment. Labor will be supporting these measures, which the government plans to implement as of the first of next month. They do provide much needed financial assistance to Australian families.

Labor is pleased that the government has acted on some concerns raised by Labor at the last election with regard to the family payments income free threshold and the large family supplement and that it has introduced some changes in these areas. The principal measure in the bill increases the income threshold for family tax benefit A from the current $33,361 to $40,000. This will be subject to annual CPI indexation from 1 July 2007. The 2005 budget included a measure to increase the threshold to $37,500 from 1 July 2006. This measure supersedes that. As a result, half a million families will receive, on average, an additional $37 per fortnight as of 1 July. The measure is costed at a little over $993 million over four years. As a result of this change in the threshold, more than 40,000 families will also become eligible for the low-income health care card.

At the last election, Labor proposed an increased threshold for the commencement of the withdrawal of family payments. Labor is pleased the government has recognised that the current income threshold is too low and that in the legislation it has picked up Labor’s concerns. Families are under growing financial pressure, and this increased assistance is welcome and has Labor’s support.

The legislation also makes a significant change to eligibility for the large family supplement. Currently the supplement of $248 a year is paid for the fourth child and any subsequent children in each family. The change under this bill means that the supplement will be paid to families for the third child and any subsequent children. This will cost about $497 million over four years. Many large families face significant financial stress, and this measure should provide some assistance.

At the 2004 election Labor proposed doubling the large family supplement to what then would have been $489 per child. Under the change in this legislation, a family with four children will receive the supplement for both their third and fourth children, and therefore their benefit will be doubled. Families with more than four children will, of course, receive the extra $248 now paid for the third child. They will not, however, receive the boost that would have come from Labor’s proposal to double the payment. Nonetheless, we are pleased the government has followed our suggestions and is providing some additional assistance for large families.

The bill also extends eligibility for the utilities allowance to people who are under the age pension age but are in receipt of the mature age allowance, widow allowance or partner allowance. This will provide the individuals affected with an additional $102 per annum. The cost over four years is in the order of $27 million.

The legislation introduces a new disaster recovery payment into the social security law. Previously disaster recovery payments, such as to those affected by Cyclone Larry, have been made on an ad hoc basis. This new legislated payment will be non means tested, nontaxable and paid to Australian residents affected by an eligible natural or non-natural disaster domestically or overseas. The payment will be $1,000 for an adult and $400 for a child. The measure will take effect as of 1 December this year and it is estimated to cost about $13 million over four years. Of course, one is never sure how much the payment will be required.

The bill also seeks to implement a maintenance income credit from the first of next month. This allows individuals to claim a previous year’s maintenance income free area for family tax benefit part A on late child support payments received in the current year. Therefore, individuals receiving backdated child support payments from a previous year do not face a reduction in their current year’s FTB A payments. Credit for this probably goes to Senator Patterson, the former minister, who I know was very strong on the subject. I understand this will cost about $52 million over four years.

The bill introduces two changes with regard to severely disabled people. The first is an extension of the qualification for the carer payment to carers of children under 16 years with a severe disability. This will exempt current recipients of the parenting payment who meet the qualification under the legislation from the activity tests applied under the government’s Welfare to Work changes. Another measure will allow families with the financial means to establish trusts to provide for the future care and accommodation of a family member with a severe disability. The value of the trust can be up to $500,000 without affecting the person’s pension eligibility. Gifts to the trust, to a total of $500,000, from parents or immediate family members will not affect the donor’s eligibility for social security or Veterans’ Entitlements Act payments. I think this is a measure that starts us on the process of reforms that have long been needed to assist people caring for people with disabilities and providing for their long-term future.

The bill also implements the recommendations of the Uhrig review with regard to the governance arrangements of the Australian Institute of Family Studies and also seeks to make minor technical amendments to the social security law. I understand Senator Bartlett of the Democrats has proposed amendments to this section of the legislation in reference to the appointment of the institute’s director. Unless the government convinces us otherwise, Labor will be supporting the Democrats’ amendments.

In summary, Labor is pleased that the government has followed some of the directions that Labor set in addressing some of the areas of need with regard to the income cap for family payments and the large family supplement. We indicated at the time of the budget our support for these measures and our willingness to ensure their passage in time for early implementation. I conclude by reaffirming that Labor will be supporting the bill. (Quorum formed)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make some comments about the adequacy of the provisions in the government’s budget approach to family and community services through the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006. I have deep concerns that the government has missed an opportunity to address the significant issues that face many of the most disadvantaged in our community, and I will go through some of those shortly. First, I want to quote the Welfare Rights Network from budget night, when they said:

... we can at least be thankful for the small mercy that there are no new cuts or significant reductions in payments or conditions this year.

I am deeply concerned that that is a pretty sad indictment of the so-called lucky country. Some went on to say:

... whilst this Budget provides large tax relief of $119 per week for a person earning $2,900 per week, payments for parents and for people with disabilities who will be forced onto Newstart Allowance after 1 July 2006, will be slashed by $29 and $46 a week respectively. We should also recognise that the 30% of individuals who have insufficient earnings to be taxed will gain no benefit from these tax cuts.

There are two million people in this country who do not have an acceptable standard of living. Some are born into families that are struggling; others are people whose lives have been turned upside down by illness, disability, loss of a job or family separation. I believe that, in a country with a $10.3 billion surplus this year, we should have been investing that surplus much more wisely than by delivering tax cuts to people who generally have enough money to get by. We could be doing more to help people who do not.

We have been told time and time again that the ageing of our population makes the age pension system unaffordable. We have been told that we must instead provide generous tax concessions to superannuation so that Australians can fund their own retirements, but modelling done by the Greens shows that for middle- and high-income earners the cost of tax concessions we give to superannuation is actually higher than the costs of providing for an age pension.

The government spent billions in the budget increasing the retirement incomes of superannuants but did nothing to increase the age pension, which many retirees currently survive on. Superannuation has a role to play in topping up the age pension, but an adequate age pension is and will remain the foundation on which Australia’s retirement income system is based. It is the generosity of the age pension that should be the government’s priority, not the tax concessions granted to Australia’s wealthy retirees.

How much extra personal income tax revenue would the government have collected if they had done things differently? Our estimates are about $9.3 billion for the 2006-07 financial year and $10.1 billion in 2007-08. If they had also done things differently with superannuation, we calculate there would be another $2.5 billion and $3.3 billion in the following financial years. This is a significant amount of money that I argue would have been better invested in dealing with some of the major issues of disadvantage that we have in this country and in helping others who have fewer advantages in our society.

Let us look at carers. Estimates by Access Economics suggest that carers contribute about $30 billion per year to our economy through the care that they provide. You would have thought that we could invest some of that back into supporting carers and the people who they care for. For example, with regard to supported accommodation, we unfortunately do not know the numbers of people with unmet needs in this country, because various states and the Commonwealth do not collect the data. We have a bit more of an understanding in Western Australia, and it is hundreds and hundreds of people who have unmet needs for supported accommodation, and I understand that it is higher in various states around the country. We should be investing in providing that accommodation.

There is also a crisis in respite care, particularly in regional areas. I heard just yesterday a story of a mother in Esperance who ended up going and sitting in the local MP’s office until she got respite care for her son. Surely, in a country awash in surplus, we could have been investing that money in providing more supported accommodation and respite for people with disabilities and, of course, for their carers. I do not think that is too much to ask. Then we look at what happened just a couple of months ago when the government moved to reduce back pay for people caring for children and people caring for adults, reducing it from 52 weeks and 26 weeks respectively down to 12 weeks, for a saving of $106 million over four years. The government gave a little bit back with their bonus payments for carers, but that does not make up for the money they took away in back pay—another thing they could have been investing in through the budget to family and community services. ACOSS, the Australian Council of Social Service, has estimated and recommended that a boost of at least 20 per cent should be made to the carers budget.

If we look at child care, we see that there was money in the budget for child care. While I think money invested in child care is a good idea, and it was a start, it did not go far enough and it did not address the issue of long day care, the quality of care or the provision of capital grants to community based day care centres, which provide a high quality of care and are worthy of support by the government.

A particular area I have deep concerns about—and which I know a wide section of the community has concerns about—is funding for affordable housing. There was not a significant increase in funding. I think it is fair to say that there is a looming national crisis in housing affordability. I think the benefits of investing in affordable housing, public housing and community housing are manifold. A recent Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on the value of community housing and public housing articulated and argued—just by the statistics—a very good case for why public housing and community housing are so important. This type of housing is provided for people on low incomes, where some people are paying up to 30 per cent of their income on rent and are forced to live in low-rent areas where jobs and transport are difficult to access. Providing housing support for people in those areas is particularly important.

The stock of social housing under the Commonwealth-state agreement has fallen 32 per cent in real terms from 1996, resulting in an 11 per cent fall in stock between 1996 and 2005. Over the last five years the number of households assisted each year has fallen from nearly 40,000 in 2001 to fewer than 28,000 in 2004-05—a decline of more than 30 per cent. While there is some growth in funding in the agreement over the next two years, this will be at less than half the rate of the expected rate of inflation. This means reduced funding for social housing in real terms and will leave more than 200,000 social housing applicants wondering if they will ever have an affordable place to live.

When we look at the statistics in the reports, we see that 81 per cent of main income earners in public housing were people on a government pension or a benefit of some sort—clearly in need of low-rent housing support. Forty-one per cent of the tenants were aged between 45 and 64, and 18 per cent were aged between 65 and 74—again, a section of our population that clearly needs housing support. With both public housing and community housing, it was very clear from the statistics that, through this support, people’s quality of life had improved. Many people said that it had allowed them to find a better job and to find space and time to train and to improve their qualifications. They also said that they felt that it had improved the quality of their life significantly and had turned their life around. Fifty-seven per cent of people living in the housing said that they could not afford private rent and that this housing provided secure tenure and promoted a sense of community. And isn’t that what we are trying to build in our country—a sense of community? So I am very disappointed that more money was not invested in housing.

Then we move on to the issue of Indigenous housing. The statistics show—and I have not heard these statistics disputed—that around $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion needs to be invested in Aboriginal housing to bring it up to any level of equality and standard that non-Aboriginal Australia would expect. Of course, we did not see that level of investment in Aboriginal housing. We are still seeing figures of between 15 and 20 people being crowded into three-bedroom, one-bathroom houses in Aboriginal communities. How anyone could expect or demand—as some people are doing—that Aboriginal communities turn their lives around, when they are living in such absolutely atrocious circumstances is beyond me. We need to be seriously investing in Aboriginal housing.

Then there is the issue of Aboriginal health. We all know the appalling statistics in Aboriginal health—the 17-year age gap and the worst statistics in many of the health areas. There was a modest $25 million increased allocation to Aboriginal health. This goes nowhere near the estimated $250 million to $570 million that is needed per annum to deal with primary health, and no overall plan was articulated. Tom Calma, in one of the many excellent speeches that he has given recently, said:

... how ironic it is that the Commonwealth Government has committed to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals by contributing to the international campaign to eradicate third world poverty by 2015, but has no similar plan to do so in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia.

That is right: there is no plan for dealing with these appalling statistics. Tom has put forward a plan to reach equality of health statistics within a generation. As I said in this place the other day, unless we start now we are not going to achieve that. So we need to clearly articulate a plan with milestones and goals about equity of access to health infrastructure and standards to meet the equality of health goal within a generation. To do that requires a huge investment. It has been estimated, as I said, at between $250 million and $700 million per annum, and we get a measly amount in this budget to deal with this issue. It is an indictment: where we have a budget surplus of over $10 billion, I argue that, instead of investing in inappropriate areas, if we were not providing the tax cuts we would have a far bigger surplus to invest in our community and in family and community services.

There are many other areas that we also need to be dealing with in Australia. There are significant issues around training, particularly now that the Welfare to Work package is coming in. There isn’t adequate training and support for the people that are being forced onto Newstart. It is not only lowering their incomes but putting them into situations where they have to take a job, any job, even if they are only earning an additional $1.66 per hour. I do not believe it is an appropriate way of helping our community. The best way to help the least advantaged is to provide additional training and support but, unfortunately, that is not available under the present system. It was inadequately provided for in the budget. We have a significant level of poverty in this country and, again, the most disadvantaged in our community are being ignored. We have no overall plan for dealing with poverty in Australia. I would have liked to have seen in this budget a significant investment in that area.

Overall, I think where we have invested our surplus and the decisions that we made on tax cuts have been misdirected. They are not supporting the most disadvantaged in our community. They are not fair. They are not caring and they are not aimed at providing a decent life for all Australians. This budget needed to look at all of those key areas and beyond what I have outlined—I have just touched the tip of the iceberg. I note that the Australian Council of Social Services, prior to the budget, provided a very comprehensive plan about where funding should be invested. They also identified areas where some of that funding could come from. The government does not need to have that identified; it knows it has a $10 billion surplus. I do not think that community groups should be forced to identify areas in the budget where the money should come from. It is there. We need to spend it appropriately and invest it in Australians so that we can have a much fairer and more equal Australia.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My apologies for missing the call previously. The Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 before us is not one the Democrats oppose. Many of the measures contained within it will be of benefit to Australians and Australian families. The key issue is not so much what is in the legislation but what is not in it, and what damage has been and is being done to Australian families through other family and community services and social security related legislation in recent times. I have spoken on this a number of times in this chamber, including to some extent earlier today. I will not repeat myself in depth beyond saying that small measures, though welcome, such as are contained in this bill do not negate the overall harm that is being done to tens of thousands of Australians and their children as a direct result of other changes that the government has made.

The different measures such as the one-off raising of the income test free area for the family tax benefit part A, the expanded access to the utilities allowance and allowing access to maintenance income test free areas for previous years are all welcome. The expanded access to the carer payment for carers of a disabled child is also welcome as far as it goes. I think this is an area where a lot more could and should be done to assist carers. The government members of the Senate recently passed a change that reduced the amount of initial payments that many applicants for carers allowance would first receive when they applied for the allowance. That is something that was undesirable. The countermeasure, if you like, of expanding access to carers payment is welcome but it is an example of giving with one hand and taking away with the other. I believe the previous change was not merited; it was simply a bureaucratic measure taken for no reason other than that it could be and it would be a little simpler in an administrative sense. It certainly was not done with the interests of carers in mind.

As I have said in this place a number of times, if there is one group in the community that needs more assistance through income support and other welfare measures it is carers. Carers carry an enormous burden and, by and large, they do not get the level of assistance they need. I do not put all of the responsibility and blame for that on federal governments. There is a case to be made that a number of state governments could be doing a lot better in respite support and other forms of assistance for people with disabilities and their carers. I hope that the current Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth-state disability agreement will enable it to operate more effectively in the way that it should and that it will get better value for money for the taxpayer and particularly for the people that it is intended to help. Of course, carers are inextricably intertwined with many aspects of how that agreement operates.

With legislation like this that contains measures that will provide some assistance to people—and, naturally, it is going to be the case that this legislation will be supported; it is fairly rare for such legislation to be opposed by people in the Senate—we need to ask the question: is this the best targeting of resources? Personally, I am not convinced that expanding access to the large family supplement from families with four or more children to families with three or more children is the best targeting of resources. I am not saying it should not be done, and I am certainly not going to vote against it. However, I do wonder whether that is the best use of taxpayers’ resources, if we are looking at targeting money towards people in need in the community.

I do not agree with providing extra financial incentives for people to have children. I think there are plenty of people in the world, frankly. We do not need to be bribing people to have more of them just to receive extra financial assistance. That should not be interpreted, I hasten to add, as not providing assistance to people with children. But the suggestion that we should be providing extra incentives for people is one that, frankly, I think we can very much do without. The notion that has some carriage lately that women should have an extra child for the country is recycling the old ‘populate or perish’ notion. It is a very simplistic approach to our demographic situation and our future demographics. It is a very simplistic approach to our economy and our society to feel that we need to be doing that. I do not believe we do need to do it. I do not begrudge people who do get that assistance. However, I do not think it is the best targeting of taxpayers’ resources through the welfare system.

Having said that and given the amount of other measures the Senate has to get through today, I will not speak any further. I do think there is a lot more than just the measures in this bill that we need to focus on, and it is those aspects of how that operates that the Democrats will keep paying attention to.

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not always delighted to speak on issues, but today I feel like I can say, ‘Oh, what a feeling.’ This will be a really great day when this Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (2006 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2006 goes through, particularly in regard to the part of the bill that deals with special disability trusts. It will be a great day for people with adult sons and daughters with a disability. When I first went into the portfolio of Family and Community Services, a large number of parents came to me and told me that they wanted to help prepare for their children’s future after they were no longer able to care for them or after they died. That was their greatest concern. What has happened and has slowly crept up on us is that people with disabilities are living longer. I have an aunt who has a sister with Down syndrome who is 71. When I was at university doing developmental psychology, we never anticipated that people would live that long. There was no concept that children with a disability would outlive their parents, and they are.

While these people attend business services, which were once called sheltered workshops, they talk to each other about their concerns. Often parents have taken on the responsibility of a son or a daughter of another person they met through a business service whom they have known for 20 and 30 years. That is how involved they become with each other’s children. They said to me that one of the things that they found difficult was that, if they provided for their children, they were disadvantaged through the assets and means test of the disability pension. If they did not have testamentary capacity to manage their own affairs, then any money put in a trust was deemed to be an asset for the purpose of assessing the pension. So they were dissuaded from doing that. What do they do? A financial adviser would say, ‘Put this much money in’—so they do not lose the pension—‘and give the rest to somebody else to look after your children.’ You know how long that would last. Sometimes nothing thins blood faster than money. I have seen that happen in my own family with the disabled family member with Down syndrome.

I went to the Prime Minister and said, ‘I am very concerned about this.’ He said, ‘Go away and fix it.’ I want to put on the public record how much assistance the Prime Minister gave me and how much support he gave me in this because he saw that it was unfair and that it needed to be fixed. He took a particular interest in this. I want to say to him, ‘Thank you very much.’ I know that the parents of sons and daughters with a disability are very grateful too for the very personal interest he took in it.

The $200 million measure that we announced last October got 1¼ inches in the press. There was no interest from the press whatsoever. Yet, if I had to say what was one of the best things I did in the whole time I was in the executive, which was seven years, this would be one of them. It is not going to change an election. It is not going to win a mass of votes. But it is going to make an enormous difference for those parents who have cared for their children for 20, 30, 40, 50 and sometimes 60 years, like the 83-year-old with a 60-year-old son, who was cared for every day of that person’s life. They were disadvantaged through the assets and means test.

Today, we have a measure that is going to make a difference. People were crying when we made the announcement. They came rushing across to me in the airport lounge and threw their arms around me, saying what a difference this is going to make to their lives. That is how important this part of the bill is to that small group of people. A $200 million package means that they can have a $500,000 trust that does not affect the assets test and does not affect the income test, if the income is used for their care. The income for that care can be used, for example, on a TAFE course, in activities of daily living, on learning how to use transport and some of the things that will help them to be more independent in their later life, and it can be used for care for them in accommodation or care for them in terms of personal assistance. Not only that but, when families gifted money, they were disadvantaged because they would lose the pension.

I want to give you an example of someone who came to me. This woman bought a house in the fifties for £15,000, I think, in the inner city of Melbourne and now it is worth about $600,000. She is in her 80s and her son has an intellectual disability. She wanted to downsize by moving to a retirement village. She wanted to put $250,000 into a retirement village and actually keep $50,000 as a buffer to pay for extras and still have her age pension. She had no income other than her age pension and his disability pension.

She wanted to put $300,000 into a group home and then be able to leave her share of the retirement village to him, her only child. What happens? He loses his disability pension because he exceeds the asset test; she loses her pension because she has gifted more than $10,000. So what does she do? She stays in the house until she cannot manage any longer or she dies, and he then goes onto the top of the emergency list for disability accommodation under the state program, taking the place of somebody who is maybe doubly incontinent and cannot feed themselves, and leaves a parent in their 70s managing that sort of situation. She wanted to make sure he was looked after, and with this measure she can do it. She still gets her age pension in the retirement village and he will still be able to draw the disability pension. That, for her, she said, was life saving. So it is a very important measure.

Once the announcement was made, I appointed an advisory group to provide advice on the policy detail of the measure. I want to extend my appreciation and the government’s appreciation to the chairman of that group, Mr Ian Spicer, who has an enormously long record in chairing the Australian Disability Advisory Council and has been very involved in a business service called VATMI Industries; Mr Tony Blunn, also a former secretary of the Department of Social Security, who brought to bear his knowledge and understanding of social security; Mrs Sue Boyce;  Mr Ian Gresswell; Mr Alan Swan; and Mrs Judy Brewer Fisher. Some of those people have financial expertise, others business expertise and some of them have children with a disability. I want to thank them for bringing to bear their professional and, as I said, in a number of cases their personal experience to this task. I particularly thank Mr Spicer, who chaired that committee, and Mrs Brewer Fisher, who really brought this issue to a head when she was chairing Family Carers Voice. She spoke to the Prime Minister about some of the issues and helped me to bring to his attention the concern that we had about the assets and means test.

I visited parents in Sydney, in WA, in Brisbane, in Tasmania—in fact, all over Australia—and talked about this issue. They raised with me the fact that they wanted to use the resources they had to provide for their children, but they were being disadvantaged. This bill means people can actually make some plans. It will enable families to provide for their children and have peace of mind, and it will make the system fairer and less discriminatory. It was very discriminatory in that if you were physically disabled but could move into and own your own home, or be left a home, then you did not get affected by the assets test, but if you could not manage your own affairs and your assets were held in a trust then you lost your disability pension.

A word to my Senate colleagues from every state: our job now is to go around to the state ministers and say, ‘You could use this very cleverly.’ The states could integrate this measure into a policy that they can put in place under the Commonwealth-state disability agreement, assisting both families who can provide accommodation for their children and those who do not have the means to do so, and marrying those two. I have to say there is one minister who cottoned on to this measure very early—in fact, before I announced it; I thought he had been reading my papers!—a minister for whom I have great respect, and I hope that I will be able to work with him and show that we can actually integrate these two policies to get greater leverage out of this measure. If the states are smart—some of them are not so smart—they will be able to do this.

The other thing that ought to be addressed, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland—and senators from New South Wales and Queensland ought to be onto this—is the ideological hurdle or block in the departments which means that any facility with over three or four people is considered an institution. Older people can choose to live in a retirement village with 350 people. Older people can choose to live in a smaller retirement setting of 100 people. Older people might choose to live in an Abbeyfield house with 10 people. They might choose to live with three other people or they might choose to live alone. Why can’t people with a disability have the same choice?

In Bega Valley and down in Warragul we have two facilities which each have more than four beds, perfect facilities for respite, but they cannot be used because the state says they are institutions. We have to get over this. We have holidays in motels with 300 bedrooms; nobody tells us they are ‘institutions’. Yet in Warragul people cannot have respite in a place with 12 beds because it is seen as an institution, a refurbished motel. So the states have a long way to go in becoming more flexible. They should not have thrown the baby out with the bathwater when we went from institutions to community care, thinking anything with over four beds was an institution.

We have a group of parents in Melbourne who want to use this measure to build a facility for their young people, and they were told that if it had more than four or five beds the state would not deliver any services to it. Get a grip! With the parents being able to contribute $200,000 each—and they were actually gifted the land—for $1 million they could build a very nice facility with possibly a bed-sitter or a one-bedroom apartment for a caretaker, using some of the money from the trusts to pay the caretaker to manage these people. It would not work with three beds, but it might work with 10 in an Abbeyfield type structure. So I would implore my colleagues, particularly those from Victoria and New South Wales, to shake the state governments out of this ideological block that means that people cannot have that sort of choice. If they do that, this measure will have much more leverage. So this is a very important measure for people.

I want to draw people’s attention to page 36 of the explanatory memorandum where it looks at division 3 of this bill which is ‘attribution of assets of special disability trusts’—and a number of parents are going to be looking very carefully at the Hansard of this because they are very keen on this measure:

Subsection 1209Y(4) provides that the value of any right or interest of the trust in the beneficiary’s principal home is disregarded for the purposes of working out the value of assets owned by the trust. This is consistent with normal social security rules, under which a person’s principal home is exempt from the assets test.

That is an amazing measure. That was not something I expected to get. It is tremendous news. There are people in Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland that I know who are already planning to use this measure. It is going to assist in removing that ideological block and in accommodating young people with a disability, getting them away from ending up in a nursing home when they are too young. If the states use a bit of creativity and a bit of flexibility and do not have that ideological block, there are huge advantages for them in using this measure.

I do not often blow my own trumpet, but I want to today because I am so excited. When it went through cabinet, I went home walking on cloud nine.

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So you should be!

Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Ferris. I want to give credit to the staff of the department. It has not been easy. We do not want to drive a truck through this. We all know that, when you have a measure, there will be people who try to scam it. I will be watching very closely and I will be appalled if anybody tries to scam this measure. This measure is meant for people who have limited or no testamentary capacity and who cannot manage their own affairs. It is also to help parents plan and give them peace of mind. It is meant for the 83-year-old that I met in Warragul who was caring for his 56-year-old daughter with Down syndrome having grand mal seizures, the mum in the inner western suburbs and the father and mother in Western Australia who want to make sure their 33-year-old son, who has been in a special school and is now in a business service, is provided for. I can go through family after family who have been hanging for this measure for a long time. I ask people to make sure that we watch very carefully so that people cannot drive a truck through this measure. That is what I asked the advisory committee to do. I have a couple of comments I want to make in the committee stage about the criteria for being in or out of the trust. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all senators who have spoken, particularly Senator Evans and Senator Bartlett for their supportive comments. The government appreciates the support of the Democrats and the Labor Party in relation to this bill. In particular, I would also like to say how much I appreciated listening to Senator Patterson make her contribution. I just remarked to Senator Ferris, the Government Whip, how wonderful it is to listen to somebody who obviously has such a strong commitment to this vital area of government policy. I would also like to acknowledge her great contribution regarding the contents not just of this bill but of other bills associated with the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs portfolio. I am sure that everybody would acknowledge the sincerity, the hard work and the insights that Senator Patterson as a very successful and determined cabinet minister brought to bear on initiatives such as those that we are debating here today. It is a pleasure to be able to listen to people who see their commitment bear the fruit that we are witnessing here today.

This is a good news bill because it contains several 2006 budget measures along with further important government initiatives. In a continuation of the government’s program of support for Australia’s low- and middle-income families, many of the measures from the 2006 budget increase family tax benefit part A entitlements. Notably, families will now get more family tax benefit part A through an increase in the income-free area to $40,000, up from $33,361 in 2005-06. That is the amount of income they can earn each year before their payment is affected. This initiative will deliver over $993 million in additional assistance over four years, bringing benefits worth up to $9.60 per week in increased part A payments to almost half a million families and increased eligibility for health care cards for around 35,000 families.

Through this bill, more families will have the special payment known as the large family supplement included in their family tax benefit part A. This payment is currently valued at $248 annually and is available only to families with four or more children. Families with three children, who also have significant parenting expenses, will now be eligible for the supplement. Family tax benefit part A recipients will also benefit from the new maintenance income credit provided by this bill. This measure addresses the fact that child support payees receiving family tax benefit part A cannot control when they receive their child support payments, which may disadvantage them if they received lump sum child support arrears in a year later than when they were due. This disadvantage arose because the benefits of the maintenance income free area for the year when the arrears were due were not available. Now, however, families will have access to their unused maintenance income free area from previous years to offset any late child support payments, leading to increased family tax benefits.

Recipients of a mature age widow or partner allowance are among the group of older Australians to receive a 2006 one-off payment equal to the annual rate of utilities allowance, currently $102.80, under the government’s budget announcement this year. To build on this one-off bonus, an ongoing entitlement to utilities allowance is established for the first time for recipients of those three allowances. This will widen the support given by the government to older Australians in meeting their everyday household expenses, such as gas and electricity.

A new streamlined, flexible and coordinated payment for Australians affected by onshore and offshore disasters known as the Australian government disaster recovery payment is being introduced by this bill. The new payment will enable the government to provide emergency assistance for offshore disasters similar to the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 London bombings, the 2005 Eyre Peninsula bushfires or tropical Cyclone Larry in 2006. The new payment builds on existing arrangements and standardises the type of ex gratia government assistance that was provided in response to those previous events while allowing maximum responsiveness to support the Australian community at such times of crisis. Any adult Australian resident affected by an eligible natural or non-natural disaster, whether within Australia or offshore, may claim the payment. Initially, a person adversely affected by a major disaster will be able to claim up to $1,000 for himself or herself and $400 for each child in his or her care.

Under this bill, parents of children with severe intellectual, psychiatric or behavioural disabilities may qualify for the carer payment. These children often present significant caring demands, especially if they cannot attend school or if their behaviour is a risk to the safety of themselves or others, effectively preventing their parents from supporting themselves through workforce participation. In recognition of this, some parents may now qualify for the carer payment under the extended eligibility criteria.

Families concerned about the future care and accommodation needs of their sons and daughters with severe disabilities will be supported in attempting to provide financial security for the time when the families may no longer be able to provide care. If these families are able to make private financial provision through a special disability trust for the future of their family members with severe disabilities, special new means test concessions will apply. The new provisions will recognise a special disability trust established by immediate family members for the current and future care of the severely disabled person. As a consequence, the severely disabled person’s social security payment, such as the disability support pension, will now not be affected by any trust income or trust asset, up to the value of $500,000.  Furthermore, gifts to the trust to a total of $500,000 from immediate family members of age pension age will not affect the donor’s social security payment. This means that the usual Social Security Act and Veterans’ Entitlements Act provisions that limit the assets a person can hold or give away without those assets affecting their entitlements to payments will be relaxed.

The bill also amends the Family Law Act to implement changes to the governance arrangements of the Australian Institute of Family Studies as part of the government’s response to the recommendations of the review of the corporate governance of statutory authorities and office holders, conducted by Mr John Uhrig. The executive management governance arrangements recommended by the Uhrig review have been assessed as being the most appropriate arrangements for the institute. Therefore, the bill will enhance the institute’s governance arrangements to make them fully consistent with executive management governance arrangements. The enhancements will include, for example, making the institute a prescribed agency under the Financial Management and Accountability Act. In keeping with the government’s knowledge and innovation policy announcement of 2001, the institute will remain a statutory agency separate from the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Finally, the bill makes a small number of minor family assistance and social security refinements in line with current policy. I thank all senators for their support of this bill, which I commend to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.