Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Further Election Commitments and Other Measures) Bill 2011.

Schedule 1 of this bill amends the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999—A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999—to provide for altered arrangements for advance payments of family tax benefits. It modifies the rules for determining whether an individual is eligible for an advance for family tax benefit and the amount of that advance. It also alters the rules toward reducing an individual's rate of family tax benefit part A when it comes to repayment of that advance. It also changes the terms and conditions regarding the raising of debts for the unpaid amount of the FTB advance.

The amount of the FTB advance will be more flexible than is currently the case and will function with an upper limit maximum advance of $1,000 and a lower limit minimum of $160.96 in 2011-12. From 2012-13 onwards, the maximum and minimum limits will be linked to the family tax benefit child rate for a single FTB child who is under the age of 13 years and will be indexed on 1 July of each year. In the event that an individual is repaying a previous amount, the maximum amount will be reduced by the original amount of the previous advance.

At present, fixed repayment periods apply. This bill changes the repayment periods, such that an individual can request an advance on any day and can have some flexibility toward the length of time they have to repay and the rate at which they repay. The default repayment period over which the advance will be repaid via a reduction of an individual's FTB part A instalment rate will be 26 weeks. The period of repayment can span up to two financial years and consideration is made for an individual's personal circumstances. Rather than a debt arising through the payment of an advance, an individual will repay the debt through reductions in FTB part A rate.

Schedule 2 of the bill introduces a condition that, in order to receive the FTB part A supplement, a child turning four must undertake a health check. This measure is to commence from 1 July 2011.

Schedule 3 amends the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989, which introduces changes to the rules that currently apply to the child support registrar in determining an individual's adjusted taxable income when a parent's taxable income has not been formally assessed. The new rules will use a parent's previous taxable income, factoring indexation in growth of wages, in cases where a tax return has not been lodged through the ATO.

Schedule 4 would have significant implications for the regulation of insurance and compensation payments, and I am advised that the schedule would have thrown Commonwealth law into direct conflict with the law of the states and territories. This schedule comes from a government that talks about harmonising interstate business operations but, ironically, this schedule would have made it harder for business to undertake their activities. The coalition has indicated to the government that we have significant concerns about this schedule, and we indicated to the government what we thought would be the wise approach of splitting schedule 4 from the bill due to the potentially disastrous design of the schedule and the massive compliance burden that it could dump on the shoulders of business. Thankfully, the government has decided to split schedule 4 to separate it from the rest of the bill. We think that is a sensible thing to do to enable further consideration of this matter.

Schedule 5 of the bill makes some minor amendments to the family assistance law and child support legislation to clarify some technical issues and to ensure that the legislation operates as intended. I can indicate that the opposition will support the separation of schedule 4 from the bill and, if that does occur, then we will not be opposing the legislation.

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

The Greens have concerns with schedule 2 of this bill. This is the schedule that makes a payment for a child turning four contingent on that child having a health check, but the measure applies only to families where either parent has received income support for any part of that year. I have concerns about this part of the bill.

As part of the government's mental health package there is funding for health checks—for social and emotional wellbeing—for children turning three. As I understand it, and after talking to various child development experts, this is a positive move. I have spoken to the government about this and about the fact that it is going to take a little while to implement—and I understand the arguments about that from the government. But now we have this legislation which ties health checks to children turning four, but only for those people who are on income support. I think that is quite discriminatory. It says, 'We think that only people on income support are not able to look after their children, so we are going to focus on them.' I also understand the government's argument that they believe, based on some of the evidence, that children from lower socioeconomic families may have more developmental problems or other health issues and that is why they are tying it to income support. However, I have spoken to child development experts, and they are saying health checks are important for all children, not just those of families on income support. So we believe that, in fact, what we should be doing if we are going to tie the supplement to family tax benefit part A is doing it for everybody so that everybody is required to have a child health check.

Not only have I been talking to child development and child health experts on that issue, I have also been looking at timing. They are saying that timing is better at three, because developmental issues are starting to develop and become manifest at that age and you are better off doing those checks earlier. What the government is doing with the social and emotional wellbeing checks would be better at three than to start at four. So here we have a piece of legislation that is getting it wrong in terms of the child health checks at four, or so the emerging evidence suggests, and ties it to those families on income support, further, in come community members' eyes, demonising those on income support and saying, 'You can't look after your children.'

We believe there is evidence to suggest that every family would benefit from having a child health check, so why not do so if the government has a mechanism where they can encourage—and what they are doing here is basically making it mandatory—having a child health check for those on income support? I know lots of families on income support who are looking after their children extremely well. They are the centre of their world. The centre of what they do is to look after the health and development of their child. What you are saying with this discriminatory mechanism is, 'We think only you people on income support may have children with development issues and are not accessing health checks for your children.'

We do not believe that is an appropriate way to look after the families of this nation. We believe that, if you are going to bring this in, you bring it in for everybody who is receiving family tax benefit part A supplement, not just those on income support. We recognise the importance of child health checks and understand that they should be when a child turns three, not when a child turns four. The government is very clear about the importance of health checks. The EM says:

… may detect developmental delays and conditions, such as problems affecting hearing and vision, which are problems that make it more difficult for children to learn when they start school. These checks will allow for early identification of health issues and intervention strategies before the child starts school.

We acknowledge that. When the Senate Community Affairs References Committee did its inquiry into hearing health in Australia, the evidence received from hearing health experts was that, although the newborn test has been introduced and is very strongly supported—I, along with many others, congratulated the government for bringing that newborn hearing test in—that does not catch all the hearing problems. There are a significant number that are not caught. So the advice that the committee received was that there should be another check of a child at some stage either before they go to school or as they start preschool. That was a recommendation that had unanimous support of the committee. There should be a preschool or second follow-up hearing test.

Let me tell you one thing. Hearing—there is an exception here which I will go into—loss and impairment does not just affect those on income support. So what are you going to do about all those other families who, for example, will not have a mandatory or compulsory child health check because they are not on income support? I know that many families do access health checks, but not all of them do. So what about those families? You are discriminating against those families because you are not then requiring it of their children, because they do not happen to be on income support. There are conditions that are not tied to those lower socioeconomic families where the government says that they have identified a larger number of developmental delays. That is another reason why we do not believe this is an appropriate approach. You can tie it to all families.

All children of Australia deserve equal treatment. The government is about identifying very early developmental delays and other conditions—as the government pointed out, hearing and vision, which are problems that make it difficult for children to learn. If the government and the state think that, as is recognised in this, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that happens, why doesn't the government think it has responsibility for all children of all families who receive family tax benefit part A so that all children, if the parents have not been able to access or have not thought about accessing a health check, are also identified early so their developmental problems such as hearing or vision impairment or loss are identified as well?

I personally understand the importance of this. My vision problems were identified after I started school. So I do actually understand how, once you have your vision problems identified and addressed, you go from bottom of the class to significantly improved and near the top of the class. I get it. It happened to me, so I get the issue of child health checks. It is the discriminatory nature of this just applying to those on income support that we strongly object to. When you compare it to other measures this government is bringing in that we believe will have a detrimental impact on those on income support, you can see there is a pretty strong collective approach by this government to pick on and demonise those families. In the not too distant future, we will be debating in this chamber the family tax benefit supplement index freeze, which will adversely impact low-income families and those on income support. We will also be talking about the disability support pension and what you will be doing to people who apply for that that we believe discriminates against people on low incomes and income support.

We do not believe it is appropriate to focus this measure just on those on income support. All children in Australia should be the focus of the government's effort to improve the assessment of developmental delays and any conditions that may not have been picked up earlier. As I said, it is particularly important for conditions such as hearing and vision problems. We do not believe it is appropriate to make distinctions between which Australian families will be forced to get health checks and which will not.

We have concerns about the age at which this health check is being implemented. I have taken on board what the government said about that and the fact that it is going to be hard to correlate at this stage the three years and the four years because, as I understand it, the tests for social and emotional wellbeing have not been finalised and developed. Normally I would have suggested postponing the implementation of this particular schedule while you develop the coordination of these tests. However, I understand the importance of child health checks—but I understand the importance of child health checks for all Australian children and families. That is why the Greens are seeking to amend this schedule so as to delete the clauses that refer to those on income support and promote child health checks for all Australian children from families that receive the family tax benefit part A supplement.

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Further Election Commitments and Other Measures) Bill 2011, the government is pleased to deliver on three further commitments made during the 2010 election to Australian families. In the first of the election commitments, we are overhauling the arrangements for advance payments of family tax benefit to better meet family needs. From 1 July 2011, the system will be much more flexible and families will have more scope to choose the size and timing of their advance payments. Under the new system, families will have help in meeting unexpected costs such as having to replace a broken down fridge or damaged school uniform and generally managing their family budget around unexpected expenses such as car registration. This new flexibility could mean some families will avoid higher credit card bills or high-interest small loans.

Between certain minimum and maximum amounts, families will be able to choose the value of their own advance payment. The minimum amount will be the same for all families: 3.75 per cent of the maximum standard rate for a child aged under 13, giving a minimum advance amount of around $160. The maximum amount will be linked to each separate family's usual rate of payment. Generally this will mean that a maximum of 7.5 per cent of that rate will be available for advance payment. For a family with one child under 13 and not receiving rent assistance, this would give a maximum advance amount of around $320. For a family with two children under 13 and not receiving rent assistance, the maximum advance would be around $640. The maximum advance would be higher for a family that is receiving rent assistance. An overall maximum will apply for all families. This will be set initially at $1,000 in 2011-12 and will be maintained at the same percentage of the maximum standard rate for one child under 13 as in the first year. Repayment of the advance will be through adjustments to families' ongoing fortnightly family tax benefit part A entitlements.

This new system will free families from the current confines of receiving and repaying advances within two set periods of the year: 1 January to 30 June and 1 July to 31 December. Families will be able to request more of their entitlements in advance at any point in the year and the advance will be recovered in the following six months. However, advance payment requests will not be approved by Centrelink if they would result in financial hardship. Families making repeated requests will also be assessed to see whether they may benefit from financial advice or financial counselling.

In the second of the election commitments delivered by this bill, a new requirement will be set up for income support recipient parents or carers of four-year-olds to give their children a healthy start for school. This initiative will make the family tax benefit part A supplement conditional for these families on their children going through a health assessment such as the Healthy Kids Check. In this way, we will ensure that children are healthy, fit and ready to learn when they start school. The check will help early detection of lifestyle risk factors and delayed development and illness such as vision and hearing problems. The health check will also offer guidance for families on healthy lifestyles and early intervention strategies. Research tells us these opportunities will be particularly important for low-income families, where a good education is so important in helping to break the patterns of disadvantage. In working with this new arrangement from 1 July 2011, parents will need to show Centrelink that the check has been done. There will be provision to waive the new requirement in exceptional circumstances such as when the child has a severe disability or terminal illness.

In the third election commitment delivered by this bill, the current policy of child support assessments of using a default income figure when a parent fails to lodge or is late with his or her tax return will be replaced with a more accurate process. Under current arrangements, the child support assessment for a parent in these situations is based on a figure equal to two-thirds of male total average weekly earnings. However, this figure often understates the parent's actual income. A more accurate child-support assessment and therefore better support for children will be produced by the new process, which will generally be the parent's last known taxable income indexed by the growth in average wages. However, if the current two-thirds method would produce a higher income, that figure will be used instead. Lastly, there are some minor clarifications that will be made to several family assistance and child support provisions. These minor amendments do not change existing policy.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.