Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table the revised explanatory memorandum relating to the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019. I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

Health Legislation Amendment (Data-matching and Other Matters) Bill 2019

The Health Legislation Amendment (Data-matching and Other Matters) Bill 2019 amends the National Health Act 1953, the Health Insurance Act 1973, the Privacy Act 1988, the Private Health Insurance Act 2007, the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 to support the integrity of Medicare through data-matching for Medicare compliance and related purposes, while maintaining strong privacy and data protection provisions.

The overwhelming majority of healthcare providers claim Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Child Dental Benefits appropriately.

Unfortunately, we know that a very small proportion do not.

It is entirely reasonable for Australians to expect that the government has appropriate systems in place to detect instances of Medicare non-compliance and treatment pathways proportionate to the type of non-compliance detected. This will ensure that every taxpayer dollar of our precious healthcare spend is directed to clinically necessary services for Australians.

While the Commonwealth has sophisticated detection techniques at its disposal, current legislative restrictions are impairing the effective and efficient detection of some cases of Medicare fraud and non-compliance.

Healthcare services provided through Medicare and the Department of Veterans' Affairs were funded by taxpayers to the tune of over $36 billion in 2017-18. The integrity of these programs must be ensured so that Australians can continue to access high quality, effective health treatments. Every dollar wasted by fraud is a dollar that the government cannot invest in cutting edge new treatments, like CAR-T therapies for people with blood cancer.

The bill will permit data-matching across the MBS and PBS for Medicare compliance purposes. This will enable, for example, the identification of instances where the Commonwealth pays for a PBS medicine that is not actually supplied.

The bill also provides for data-matching between the Department of Health and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency to ensure that restrictions placed on registered healthcare providers by their professional board are adhered to in Medicare claiming.

It would also allow for therapeutic goods information to be used by the Department of Health to help ensure Medicare claims in relation to unapproved medical devices are appropriate.

Healthcare providers claiming Medicare services for general patients may also claim for services delivered to patients under Department of Veterans' Affairs programs.

The bill supports matching of data from Medicare and the Department of Veterans' Affairs to ensure that services provided under both programs are considered for the purposes of the prescribed pattern of services, where exceeding a certain number of services on a certain number of days may be considered inappropriate practice.

Data-matching with records held by the Department of Home Affairs that indicate whether a person is overseas will allow confirmation that both the healthcare provider and patient were in Australia at the time of their claimed services. Believe it or not, we have actually found instances of fraudulent Medicare billing where either the doctor or the patient for a service billed to Medicare was actually out of the country when the service was supposed to have been provided.

The bill also allows private health insurers to voluntarily share information with the Department of Health for the purposes of detecting fraud and recovering incorrect payments. The bill will not allow the government to share any patient information collected by the government with private health insurers.

While data-matching permitted by the bill will enhance my department's ability to detect Medicare fraud and non-compliance, it will not expand its existing compliance powers. Nor will it change the approach taken by the department in conducting its compliance activities which are designed to be proportionate to the type of non-compliance detected.

The department will continue to engage and consult with professional bodies and other stakeholder groups on its compliance strategies and activities, as well as provide education support resources for health professionals.

Importantly, departmental officers will continue to follow prescribed and legislated processes when undertaking Medicare compliance, with procedural fairness and review rights for health professionals retained. The bill does not support automation of the department's compliance activities and outcomes, or the raising and collection of debts.

The government acknowledges the importance of protecting an individual's privacy and the trust placed in the government by Australians to manage their health data appropriately. Protecting the privacy of an individual's health and other data is central to this bill.

As Minister for Health, I will be required to put in place governance arrangements for data-matching for Medicare compliance purposes through a legislative instrument that prescribes how information for data-matching will be handled. The legislative instrument will ensure that the use, storage, access and handling of data protects privacy.

In conclusion, I consider that this bill strikes the right balance by facilitating the important public policy objective of protecting the integrity of our taxpayer-funded health system, while enshrining strong principles to protect the privacy and security of personal health data.

I would like to extend my thanks to all of the healthcare professional groups that have engaged in the design of this bill, providing constructive input and feedback over the past 18 months. This included the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.

Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019

Today I rise to speak on a bill that continues our commitment to improve our welfare system and deliver a real difference to the lives of all Australians.

This bill, the Social Security (Administration) Amendment (Income Management to Cashless Debit Card Transition) Bill 2019, provides for the transition of income management participants across the Northern Territory and Cape York region to the cashless debit card.

The bill also allows for the extension of the cashless debit card across all four current trial sites for an additional year until 30 June 2021.

The cashless debit card program is delivering significant benefits for the communities where it currently operates. The program has the objective of reducing immediate hardship and deprivation, reducing violence and harm, encouraging socially responsible behaviour, and reducing the likelihood that welfare recipients will remain on welfare and out of the workforce for extended periods.

The program is showing positive results.

The baseline report into the Goldfields trial site found decreases in drug and alcohol issues, decreases in crime and antisocial behaviour, improvements in child health and wellbeing, improved financial management and ongoing—and even strengthened—community support.

The bill will see welfare recipients in the Northern Territory and Cape York region transition from income management to the cashless debit card. Currently, these participants hold a BasicsCard, a card which directs welfare expenditure towards priority needs.

The government recognises that the BasicsCard, while effective, can restrict an individual's ability of choice. Currently, the BasicsCard only works in around 19,000 stores that have signed a merchant agreement with my department, the Department of Human Services.

In comparison, the cashless debit card works everywhere except when individuals try to purchase alcohol, gambling products and some gift cards, and to withdraw cash—around 900,000 stores. The cashless debit card provides income management participants with greater consumer choice and autonomy while reducing red tape for businesses.

While the government recognises the effectiveness the BasicsCard has had on the communities in which it has operated, it is time to provide income management participants in the Northern Territory and Cape York region with the opportunities that the cashless debit card brings.

The government recognises that we must continue to work in partnership with communities, stakeholders and most importantly participants to support the transition to the cashless debit card.

Therefore, this bill outlines that the transition will occur slowly over a nine-month period, from 1 April 2020. This will allow the transition to occur community by community, and the Department of Social Services, together with the Department of Human Services, will work with communities and individuals to provide support for the transition every step of the way.

We will work with communities to ensure each and every participant transitions from the BasicsCard to the cashless debit card as smoothly as possible. And we have allocated approximately $17.5 million to support participants in the transition.

The government also recognises that this transition will affect a large number of Indigenous Australians across both the Northern Territory and the Cape York region. We will work with these Indigenous communities and individuals to ensure that resources will be available in a range of local Indigenous languages and there will be access to interpreters as required.

I thank the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for its report on the bill. The committee published the report on 7 November 2019, and recommends that the bill be passed, subject to clarification of the ministerial power to vary the restriction rate of a community. The committee is satisfied that the bill and the high level of engagement undertaken by the Department of Social Services will ensure a successful transition to the cashless debit card in the Northern Territory and Cape York region.

The government acknowledges the feedback and recommendations provided by the Committee, as well as the dissenting reports published by the Labor Party and the Australian Greens.

The ministerial power to vary the restriction rate of a community in the Northern Territory. This was originally included in the bill to replicate a power that was introduced by Labor in 2010 and currently exists under income management. Hearing criticism from Labor about a power they introduced is another example of Labor's backflipping and inconsistency. In response to feedback from the Committee, the government has amended Labor's 2010 powers and reduced the scope of the ministerial power to vary the restriction rate to a maximum of 80 per cent, in line with other Cashless Debit Card sites.

In addition, the government has amended the bill to exclude age pension recipients everywhere except Cape York from becoming compulsory cashless debit card participants.

The cashless debit card is a community driven, bottom-up approach to tackling long-term welfare dependency, social harm and welfare-funded drug and alcohol abuse.

We must continue to support communities that put their hand up and drive positive change and improved outcomes for vulnerable individuals within those communities.

This bill does exactly that.

The government remains committed to the continuation of the cashless debit card to provide a strong social welfare safety net through reducing social harm in areas with high levels of welfare dependency and supporting vulnerable people, families and communities.

I commend the bill to the Senate.

Treasury Laws Amendment (Recovering Unpaid Superannuation) Bill 2019

The coalition government has introduced a new era of superannuation guarantee enforcement.

In the last parliament, the government passed a robust package of legislation to ensure employers can no longer hide from their obligations to pay employees their full superannuation entitlements. Those laws give the Australian Taxation Office the tools it needs to detect future non-compliance and punish employers appropriately, including with criminal sanctions in the most egregious cases.

New visibility into payment of superannuation guarantee combined with serious financial and legal consequences for non-compliance will all but eliminate future non-payment.

But we know that historical non-compliance has been significant. Last year the Australian Taxation Office found that, while 95 per cent of superannuation guarantee obligations are paid in full, in 2015-16, around $2.8 billion went unpaid.

Some superannuation guarantee underpayment is malicious on the part of dodgy employers. However, some is inadvertent, or is a result of poor payment systems, often in stressed small business employers. Regardless of the motivation, in all cases, it's the employees who miss out.

Reuniting as many workers as possible with the superannuation that is rightly theirs must be the priority.

With this objective in mind, this bill introduces a one-off amnesty to employers who come forward and do the right thing by their employees by rectifying historical non-compliance with their superannuation guarantee obligations. The amnesty complements our Superannuation Guarantee Integrity reforms which we passed earlier this year.

To qualify for the amnesty, employers will have meet two criteria: they must come forward voluntarily, without direct prompting from the Australian Taxation Office; and they will have to pay all of their employees' entitlements.

Reuniting workers with their superannuation is the priority.

We want employers to bring these underpayments out into the open and pay them off as soon as possible so that their employees can receive the super they are entitled to.

The bill offers both a carrot and a stick to encourage non-complying employers to come forward.

Importantly, the bill does not reduce employees' entitlements by one cent. Everything that an employer owes to its employees must still be paid, paid immediately, and paid in full.

Rather, the bill removes the penalties and fees paid to the Commonwealth that might otherwise apply to historical superannuation guarantee non-compliance by employers that are eligible for the amnesty.

Employers who do the right thing and come forward during the amnesty period will also be able to claim tax deductions for payments made under the amnesty, which is the same outcome as if they had paid on time.

Those are the carrots.

The stick will be reserved for employers that could come forward during the amnesty period, but choose not to do so and are subsequently caught by the Australia Taxation Office. Their failure to come forward will generally result in the imposition of a minimum 100 per cent penalty on the employer, on top of the other penalties and charges that are ordinarily associated with late payment of superannuation guarantee obligations.

Of course, throughout the amnesty period, the Australian Taxation Office will still continue its usual enforcement activity against employers for any historical non-compliance that they don't own up to voluntarily.

The laws we passed earlier this year, combined with near real-time reporting ensures that the Australian Taxation Office now has much greater visibility of when superannuation is not paid.

The amnesty period runs from 24 May 2018, to six months after the day this bill receives Royal Assent and applies to any historical superannuation guarantee debts up to and including the March quarter of 2018.

Full details of the measure are contained in the explanatory memorandum.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.