Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in relation to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019. Labor supports this bill. It is important that social security is available to people when they need it, but also that we ensure the integrity of our payments scheme. This is critical for public confidence.

This bill will require Australian social security recipients who are over 80 years of age and who have resided overseas for more than two years to provide a proof-of-life certificate. A new certificate will be required every two years. Once contacted by Centrelink, a person will have 13 weeks to provide a proof-of-life certificate certified by an authorised person. Details will be finalised in a subordinate legislation, but the explanatory memorandum states that authorised certifiers will include judges, magistrates, medical doctors and staff at an Australian embassy, consulate or high commission. If a proof-of-life certificate is not received by Centrelink within the required 13 weeks, the person's payments will be suspended for the following 13 weeks. If a certificate is not provided within the suspended period or if the person does not re-enter Australia, the payment will be cancelled. However, if at any time after the payment is suspended or cancelled a person provides a proof-of-life certificate to Centrelink, their payment will recommence with full back pay.

Around 96,000 people who receive Australian social security payments—usually the age pension—live overseas permanently. The age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer pension can be paid to people who live permanently overseas when either the person's payments have unlimited portability under the Social Security Act or the payment is made under one of Australia's international social security agreements.

Currently, payments continue until a person's death is reported to Centrelink by family or friends. The death rate for age pensioners living overseas is currently significantly lower than for those living in Australia, indicating that Centrelink is not being notified of deaths in a timely manner in all cases. It is, of course, possible that this happens in many cases because friends and family simply do not realise they need to tell Centrelink and might assume that payments are stopped automatically. But, even when a person lives overseas, payments do not necessarily stop automatically. Proof-of-life certificates are required by several European countries with portable social security.

Labor is very concerned that the government runs a very high risk of stuffing up the implementation of these changes, just as they stuffed up the robodebt, and just as they have run down Centrelink services to the point where pensioners are waiting months to get pensions. The last thing we want to see is a pensioner having their payments cut off because Centrelink does not contact them properly or takes too long processing their certificate when it is returned. If someone has questions, they should not be left waiting on the telephone for hours. It is absolutely critical that the government has the right system and resources in place to make this work, and that local certifying arrangements are not impossibly onerous for older Australians living overseas. We know this government's record when it comes to its treatment of pensioners and older Australians. We've heard stories of pensioners waiting for hours on the phone just to speak to someone at Centrelink. We've heard stories of pensioners waiting for months to have their applications and payments processed. The reality is: this government's record on its treatment of pensioners has been absolutely atrocious.

Cutting pensions is in the Liberal DNA. They have tried to cut the pensions and increase the pension age to 70 in every budget, including the three budgets where the current Prime Minister had the job of Treasurer. In the 2014 budget, they tried to cut pension indexation—a cut that would have meant that pensioners would have been forced to live on $80 a week less within 10 years. This unfair cut would have ripped $23 billion from the pockets of pensioners in Australia. In the 2014 budget they cut $1 billion from pensioner concessions, support designed to help pensioners with the cost of living. In the 2014 budget they axed the $900 seniors supplement to self-funded retirees holding a Commonwealth seniors health card. In the 2014 budget, the Liberals tried to reset the thresholds for deeming rates, a cut that would have seen 500,000 part-pensioners made worse off. In 2015 the Liberals did a deal with the Greens to cut the pensions of around 370,000 pensioners by as much as $12,000 a year by changing the pension assets test. In 2016 they tried to cut the pension of around 190,000 pensioners as part of a plan to limit overseas travel for pensioners to six weeks. In the 2016 budget they also tried to cut the pension of over 1.5 million Australians by scrapping the energy supplement for new pensioners. The government's own figures show that this would have left over 563,000 Australians who are currently receiving a pension or allowance worse off. Over 10 years, in excess of 1.5 million pensioners would have been worse off. On top of this, they spent five years trying to increase the pension age to 70 and it took five consecutive cuts before they even adjusted the deeming rates. The Liberals have cuts to the pension in the budget.

Debate interrupted.