Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To take the tone down a few notches, I rise to provide a contribution on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Incentivising Pensioners to Downsize) Bill 2022, and I'd like to at the outset indicate the coalition's support for this piece of legislation. The bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 to support pensioners or other eligible income-support recipients—

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators at the back of the chamber, I can just about hear word for word your conversations, and Senator Duniam is trying to make a contribution.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's obviously hard to regain composure as a collective, and we shall do that now. I'm going to be serious and sensitive now. But this bill, which we support—and I'm almost at the end of my contribution here now; I'm coming quite near to the end of my analysis of this legislation, which is amazing—supports pensioners or other eligible income-support recipients during the sale and purchase of a new home by, firstly, extending the existing assets test exemption for principal home sale proceeds which a person intends to use to purchase a new principal home from 12 to 24 months and, secondly, applying only the lower below-threshold deeming rate to these asset-test-exempt principal home sale proceeds when calculating deemed income, two important elements, and for those reasons the coalition supports the bill.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak in support of the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Incentivising Pensioners to Downsize) Bill 2022. We will be supporting this bill, but it is another very, very, very small step forward for the social services and social security agenda. It's another election commitment from the Labor Party. It's another election commitment that was effectively bipartisan between Labor and the Libs, with the Labor Party competing with the Liberal Party to do just enough tweaking of our social services legislation to make sure the Liberals can't run another scare campaign to say the Labor Party are abandoning older Australians.

Meanwhile the system is broken. While the Labor Party is tweaking it with minor changes—and in fact we don't even know how many pensioners are likely to take this up, and the estimates that I've heard are 'probably not very many', as much it's a good measure—it's basically a Liberal election commitment. People are relying on income support payments that are below the poverty line. People are going hungry. People are homeless. People can't afford to pay the rent. People can't afford to pay their medical bills or seek the medical treatment that they need. People are turning off the lights and the heating because they're afraid of the bills. These are the big issues, the big changes to our social security system that we should be addressing, and across the country there are people—whether they're on JobSeeker, youth allowance, student allowance, the disability support pension or the aged pension—who are relying on income support who had dearly hoped that a change in government would mean a change in policy. They had hoped that it would mean a change for their lives.

It's almost the end of the year. This government has now been in government for six months, and across the country what a lot of us are hearing is disappointment. So let me say clearly to the Labor Party that we want to work with you on this. We want to see before this parliament a government bill that raises the rate of income support and makes the genuine changes to our social security system that are needed. We want to see genuine change that will benefit people who are the most marginalised, who are the poorest people in the country, who are the people who are starving, who are the people who are being diagnosed with malnutrition and with scurvy.

We want to work with the government, but we are not going to sit quietly and just tick off on minor tweaks and let you ignore the millions of people who are condemned to live in poverty by the political choices that you are making, because that is the simple reality—poverty is a political choice. The government, while it's tweaking incentivising pensioners to downsize, has made a choice to not reverse the stage 3 tax cuts, which are going to cost the budget $250 billion over the next 10 years. This government has made a choice to give that $250 billion to the billionaires and to the ultra-wealthy—to people who do not need a tax cut. Meanwhile, people are being quagmired in poverty. The government has chosen to keep those tax cuts instead of raising the rate of JobSeeker.

This bill incentivises pensioners to downsize, but it amends the Social Security Act and other legislation. I and the Greens are going to take every opportunity, as I said earlier this week, to attempt to take action to increase the rate of income support for the millions of people who are now living in poverty. I have a second reading motion on sheet 1682 that I will be moving that calls on the Senate to lift the rate of income support payments above the poverty line. I call on every senator who cares about their fellow Australians, who cares that there are people who are homeless, who can't pay the rent, who can't put food on the table and who can't pay their medical bills, to please support this amendment. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to lift the rate of all income support payments above the poverty line".

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm soothed by the mellifluous tones of Senator Duniam in making his reassuring assertion of the opposition's support for this bill. I intend to make a much shorter contribution. If you listen carefully to Senator Rice's contribution, we can look forward to a Greens party amendment, but I'm confident of the support of the Senate for this important piece of legislation.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that second reading amendment moved by Senator Rice be agreed to.