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

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019. The Liberals still have cuts to the pension in the budget. They want to completely take away the pension supplement from pensioners who go overseas for more than six weeks. This will see around $120 million ripped from the pockets of pensioners. They still want to make pensioners born overseas wait longer as well before qualifying for the age pensioner by increasing the residency requirement from 10 years to 15 years.

Labor has fought these cuts tooth and nail, and this is the only reason that the Liberals and the Nationals have flip-flopped and given in. No-one spends five years, including three years as Treasurer, trying to cut the pension and increase the pension age to 70 unless they really believe it. This is why pensioners know they can't trust the Prime Minister. There is one simple fact: no matter who the leader of the Liberals is, cutting pensions is in the Liberals' DNA.

This week we saw again a glimpse of the Prime Minister's disdain for older Australians. On the weekend, we read reports that the number of over-55s who receive Newstart has increased by over 45 per cent under the Liberals and Nationals, a staggering 58,313 since the Liberals took office. One in four Australians on Newstart are aged over 55, the single largest cohort of recipients of the allowance. Older Australians experience particular difficulties in re-entering the workforce due to structural barriers and age discrimination. Older Australians who are desperately trying to re-enter the workforce are asking themselves, 'How is the cashless card or a drug test going to help me get a job?'

What are the Prime Minister's plans for jobs? What are this Prime Minister's plans for the economy? The reason why this Prime Minister is reheating old ideas is because he has run out of ideas. Rather than stimulating our stagnant economy and easing the situation for older Australians who have fallen on hard times, the Prime Minister is more interested in subjecting them to humiliating urine tests. How is it that the Prime Minister spends so much time obsessing and devising ways to humiliate and prod older Australians who are trying to re-enter the workforce and yet he has no plan for jobs and no plan to boost an economy that is getting weaker every day that he is Prime Minister?

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

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019. This bill introduces a requirement for people receiving income support payments who are 80 years and over and living overseas permanently for at least two years to provide proof-of-life certificates. It affects people receiving the age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment. This includes people whose payment has an unlimited portability period under the Social Security Act and people receiving a payment under one of Australia's international social security agreements.

This bill requires people to provide proof-of-life certificates once every two years at a minimum. The proof-of-life certificate requires an authorised person to verify that the person is alive. The certificate must be certified by an authorised certifier, which could include a judge, magistrate, medical doctor or authorised consular staff at an Australian embassy, consulate or high commission. Aside from giving these general examples, this bill does not define who can be an authorised certifier. This is left to be clarified in a legislative instrument.

Under this bill, a person has 13 weeks to return a proof-of -life certificate from the date they are given notice by the secretary. If they do not return the certificate or enter Australia within 13 weeks, the income support payment will be suspended for a period of up to 13 weeks. If they fail to comply during the suspension, the income support payment will be cancelled. A person who has had their payment suspended or cancelled is eligible to receive back pay once they provide a proof-of-life certificate. However, they are only eligible to receive back pay for up to 39 weeks.

Firstly, I'm very concerned that people over the age of 80 living overseas are going to struggle to receive their proof-of-life certificate from the department in the mail. What if they changed their address and forgot to notify Centrelink? What if they are incapacitated in a hospital for a long period of time? What if the mail system in their country of residence doesn't work as effectively as the Australian system? I also have strong concerns that Australians aged over 80 will be threatened with payment suspensions and cancellations as a way of enforcing compliance. The bill will subject some very vulnerable people to payment cancellations, all because they are living overseas. The strict 13-week deadline means that pensioners could face hardship as a result of losing their income support payment. The onus shouldn't be on older Australians to prove they are still alive. We should have better ways of keeping track of income support recipients through Centrelink. My office has been assured that there will be no debts raised from people who have had their income support payment cancelled as a result of noncompliance. I would like to ensure that the minister verifies that this is in fact the case.

There are currently around 96,000 Australians receiving income support payments while living permanently overseas, with most of these people receiving the age pension. Some 24,900 are over the age of 80. The government predicts that only 6,000 people over the forwards will be affected by the bill. In the scheme of things, this is a very small number of people to be chasing for some meagre savings to the budget bottom line.

Under current policy the government has two ways of being notified of an income support recipient's death. Firstly, the government relies on the recipient's family to notify them of their family member's death. Secondly, Australia has reciprocal death reporting agreements with countries like the UK, where data on deaths is shared between the two countries. However, it is possible that family members mistakenly believe they are entitled to receive income support payments after the recipient living overseas has died. This is understandable, because in some countries a person's spouse or dependants are entitled to receive payments after the recipient's death. It seems to me that if families are unsure of the rules around payment eligibility, the government should be prioritising a public education campaign for income support recipients overseas and their families, instead of this rather onerous legislation. Instead of putting the onus on older Australians on income support payments living overseas through the proof-of-life certificates, the approach should be one of education and ensuring that processes are in place so that Australia does get that notification.

While the Greens will be supporting this bill, I have some concerns about this approach to target overseas people on income support and how this process could potentially impact them, particularly through the introduction of these rather onerous reporting requirements and compliance measures. The implementation of this legislation should be monitored to make sure that there isn't an inordinate number of people receiving income support payments—age pensioners in particular, because the bulk of these people are age pensioners—who start to drop off income support not because they have passed away but because this system is not working as intended. I will be keeping a close eye on it and seeking from the minister in her summing up statement a response to the issues that I raised for clarification.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Overseas Welfare Recipients Integrity Program) Bill 2019, implements a measure announced in the 2018-19 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook to confirm that Australian pensions are being paid only to overseas pensioners who are still alive. Voluntary third-party reporting, such as by family members, is the primary method by which the Department of Human Services learns of the death of an overseas pensioner. Data shows that there is a disparity between the death rates of pensioners aged 80 years and above overseas and in Australia. This disparity is significantly large enough to suggest that DHS is not being notified in all cases or in a timely manner when a person dies overseas. Analysis of a sample of pensioners overseas in a target group highlighted that many of these pensioners go years without further contact with the Australian government. In some cases this has been more than 20 years.

This change will help to protect the integrity of government outlays for welfare payments overseas, ensuring a fair and sustainable welfare system. The introduction of a proof-of-life process will also bring Australia into line with international practice. Because Australia is a multicultural country, with a large proportion of Australians having been born overseas, the government recognises that many people choose to return to their country of birth upon retirement. However, there is some confusion with some pensioners and their families overseas that Australian pensions can be inherited by partners or family. This misunderstanding is compounded when a person is concurrently receiving pensions from Australia and another country where the other pension may remain payable to a widow or widower. There are approximately 96,000 age pension, disability support pension, widow B pension, wife pension and carer payment recipients currently residing permanently overseas. Of these, approximately 25,000 are aged 80 years and over, and they live in around a hundred different countries. The top five countries of residence are Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and New Zealand. Australia has international social security agreements with 31 countries that allow people to claim an Australian pension while living overseas.

It is estimated that this measure will identify approximately 6,000 pensioners aged 80 years and over who are deceased and still receiving payments overseas. This measure is expected to save around $219 million from 2019 to 2023 as a result of identifying deceased pensioners earlier. Pensioners aged 80 and over and residing permanently overseas for longer than two years will need to complete and return a proof-of-life certificate every two years in order to continue to receive their pension overseas. To help protect against fraud, the certificates will have to be verified. Pensioners will have a range of options available to have their certificate verified so as to make their process as easy and practical as possible. Pensioners will be given 13 weeks to respond to the request. If there's no response their pension will be suspended for up to 13 weeks. If they still haven't responded after this time—26 weeks in total—their payment will be cancelled. Should they make contact and provide their completed proof-of-life certificate after this time their payment will be able to be reinstated without requiring the pensioner to reclaim. A pensioner who has their payment reinstated will be paid any arrears to which they're entitled. Provided a pensioner responds and provides their completed proof-of-life certificate within 39 weeks of the initial request being sent, they will be able to receive full arrears. Life certificates or proof-of-life requests are commonly used for pension eligibility confirmation by European countries—

Debate interrupted.