Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025. The coalition will support this bill in the Senate today; however, we hold concerns about certain provisions that merit closer scrutiny. At all times, we must remember that Australia's social services safety net is among the most robust and generous in the world. This system does not sustain itself. It must be carefully managed and responsibly administered because it is funded by Australian taxpayers—by the men and women who work hard, take risks and shoulder the responsibility of supporting our social security system. Few countries in the world offer a social safety net as comprehensive as Australia's. It is something we can truly take pride in but also something we must safeguard and preserve. Our social security safety net is funded by those who pay taxes—small-business owners, primary producers and frontline workers, who keep our country running. They do so because of a belief in a fair go and that one day they might need that safety net too. It is sustained by those on the frontline—the nurses working through the night, the teachers shaping young minds and the police who put themselves in harm's way to keep us safe.

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I remind senators that there is a senator on her feet giving a speech on the second reading debate. Please leave the chamber if you're not doing so in silence.

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We must never forget that every dollar spent on social security is a dollar that is earned by someone else. It means that every measure, every amendment and every program cost must therefore be justified. It must be fair, sustainable and targeted to assist those in genuine need while preserving the integrity and future of the system itself. We also carry responsibility for future generations. The choices we make today about the structure and sustainability of our welfare system will determine the burden and opportunity inherited by Australians tomorrow.

Income support should deliver a strong and sustainable safety net and encourage a path to employment for those who can work. Employment is the single most effective way to improve living standards for individuals and families. That conviction has long shaped our approach to social policy and continues to guide our priorities in opposition. These priorities are especially important in the midst of an enduring cost-of-living crisis driven by Labor's economic mismanagement at a time when households across Australia are struggling with rising costs and stagnant wages, and when the new working poor must decide between heating or cooling and eating.

When in government, the coalition demonstrated disciplined and responsible economic management. We were able to deliver the largest permanent increase in the JobSeeker payment at that time, ensuring that there was a safety net for those in need. In April 2021 the coalition increased working-age payment rates, including JobSeeker, by $50 a fortnight. We also permanently increased the income-free area to $150 per fortnight, giving job seekers greater flexibility and incentive to take on work as they re-entered the workforce. During the height of the pandemic—one of the greatest economic and social challenges of our generation—the coalition government provided $32 billion in emergency payments to help Australians get through. This is the record of a coalition government that understood the balance between compassion and responsibility, between helping those who need help with targeted and timely responses and ensuring that the system remains fair to those who fund it.

This bill's schedules amend a number of acts, including A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999, the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010, the Social Security Act 1991 and the Student Assistance Act 1973. These amendments in this bill have significant consequences for how social security payments are administered and how debts and undetermined debts are treated. The bill includes provisions providing clarity to income apportionment, a practice introduced under Labor. The bill seeks to do several things. It sets out preliminary and definitional matters as well as income apportionment method statements. It validates income apportionment as a method of apportioning employment income in relation to entitlement periods before 7 December 2020. It also clarifies the lawful methods of apportioning employment income when determining debts or rates of payment for periods before that date. It expands the instances in which the special circumstances waiver may be applied to waive debts incurred under the relevant acts. It increases the threshold for waiving a small debt of $250 and provides for that threshold to be indexed annually to the consumer price index. It provides a one-off waiver for the Commonwealth's right to recover small, undetermined debts worth less than $250 that are currently recorded in Services Australia's systems but are yet to be raised.

Another significant measure is the establishment of the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme. This scheme will provide resolution payments to people whose debts were affected by income apportionment between 20 September 2003 and 6 December 2020. The bill gives the minister power to determine matters relating to the scheme through legislative instrument and it provides for a new special appropriation to fund these resolution payments. Additionally, now the legislation allows for the minister responsible for the Australian Federal Police to issue a notice to the Minister for Social Services requiring the cessation of certain payments as well as concession cards in circumstances where a person is subject to an outstanding arrest warrant for a serious violent or sexual offence. Taxpayers should not fuel the means for people to evade the law.

While these measures are important, they are not without concern. The first issue relates to the process by which this legislation has been developed. It appears that income apportionment measures have been informed by the Commonwealth Ombudsman's own-motion investigation and its recommendations, yet we're informed that there was no direct consultation with the Ombudsman in the development of the legislation. A reasonable person would think that, if the measures stem from the Ombudsman's own findings, it would be reasonable to expect from the government that they have engaged directly with that office to ensure the legislation aligns with those recommendations. You would think so, but, no, not for this government.

Second, the timing of this bill raises serious questions. The government has waited until the tail end of the sitting calendar to bring this legislation forward. As a result, scrutiny has been rushed, with only a single day allocated for Senate committee examination. That Senate inquiry heard almost exclusively from social service advocacy groups and not-for-profit organisations. This narrow consultation raises legitimate concerns about how many voices the government actually listened to when preparing this bill.

The Ombudsman, in its submission to the Senate inquiry, highlighted a serious omission—namely, that the issue of remediation for individuals who have been criminally convicted in relation to debts that were invalidly calculated using income apportionment is not addressed in the bill. That is not a minor point. It goes to the heart of fairness, accountability and justice. If the government acknowledges that income apportionment was used unlawfully for years then the question of how that impacts those who face prosecution or conviction as a result should not be left unanswered.

Further, the bill leaves many operational details unresolved. It is not clear how the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme will interact with the Scheme for Compensation for Detriment caused by Defective Administration, the longstanding framework for compensating individuals adversely affected by administrative errors. Much, it seems, is being left to legislative instruments, meaning that critical decisions about the design and implementation of the scheme will be made outside the direct scrutiny of the parliament. That is deeply concerning.

Due to the absence of these essential details in the primary legislation, parliament's capacity to properly scrutinise the resolution scheme has been restricted by this Labor government—the same one that said it would govern with transparency. Once the delegated legislation is tabled, we will, of course, examine it.

The government itself has belatedly recognised the flaws in its own work and been forced to amend its legislation with over 12 pages of amendments in the House of Representatives alone. This is yet more evidence that the bill was brought before parliament half-baked, without the necessary scrutiny or consultation and rushed through the legislative process. A responsible government would have taken the time to get this right. Instead, what we have seen is a series of reactive amendments and last-minute fixes. A feature of this government is to be focused on political expediency, it seems, rather than on good governance.

Through its amendments to the bill in the House of Representatives, the government included an entire additional schedule. The public should know that there was no opportunity for these last-minute amendments to be scrutinised through the committee process. While we agree with the intent of the measures in schedule 5, the committee process is important to ensure that there are no unintended consequences and that the legislation is fit for purpose. It is entirely inappropriate that the amendments weren't put to scrutiny in the committee process.

It was a coalition government that first announced it would crack down on offenders and criminals with outstanding warrants by withholding welfare payments. Under the measures announced by the then coalition government, the Commonwealth could suspend or cancel the welfare payments of individuals who had outstanding state and territory arrest warrants for indictable criminal offences. It was a commonsense measure that was scrapped by the Albanese government in its first budget, as a result of its spending audit. Now it is actually seeking to reintroduce it. The minister described this measure last week as 'commonsense' and 'in line with community expectations'. Why was this measure not viewed by this government as commonsense and in line with community expectations in October 2022 when they actually scrapped it? What has changed? Why was this schedule not included in the original legislation?

I'm going to turn now to the special circumstances waiver. There are also unresolved questions about how the waiver will operate in practice because this bill provides little detail about the measures, procedures and thresholds that will guide Services Australia in deciding whether such circumstances exist. Without clear criteria, there is a real risk of inconsistent decision-making and unequal treatment of applicants. How will staff be supported to make informed and compassionate decisions? These are not academic questions; they go to the heart of how the law will affect real people.

Minister Plibersek, in her second reading speech, said that existing safeguards would be strengthened to prevent manipulation of the waiver system. There is still little detail provided on what these strengthened safeguards will look like or how they will operate in practice to prevent misuse or manipulation of the social security safety net.

The coalition will continue to engage constructively where possible. We acknowledge that this bill contains a number of technical amendments seeking to address long-standing administrative challenges within the social security system. However, we will also continue to hold the government to account for the way in which these measures are developed and implemented. The Australian people are entitled to transparency, accountability and assurance that their parliament is performing its role diligently. While the coalition will support this bill in the Senate today, we remain concerned about the absence of key operational details on the income apportionment resolution scheme within the primary legislation. The coalition will closely scrutinise and consider the legislative instrument establishing the resolution scheme once it is tabled. We expect the government to clearly explain how the scheme will operate in practice, how fairness will be upheld and how the integrity of the social security framework will be maintained.

Every dollar spent through the social security system is a dollar earned by a hardworking Australian. It is our responsibility—in fact, it's our duty—to ensure that those dollars are spent wisely and with the integrity required so that they strengthen, not weaken, the foundations of our social security safety net, and that any instances of fraud and misuse are dealt with appropriately. Above all, our task in this place—in this parliament—is to ensure that Australia's welfare system continues to support those in genuine need. It must provide meaningful pathways to independence and remain sustainable for generations to come. That's what we need to ensure for the social security system. This is the coalition's enduring commitment to fairness, responsible governance and the integrity of Australia's social security system.

Richard Dowling (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 may carry the word 'technical' in the title, but its purpose is anything but minor. Beneath the fine print, it deals with fairness, accountability and the basic dignity owed to every Australian who has relied on our social security system. Australia's social security system really is one of the most targeted in the world on many measures. It's generous in purpose but it's precise in its delivery. In fact, if you reflect on how targeted it is, the proportion of the funds that flow to the top 20 per cent versus the bottom 20 per cent are 12 to one. That is $12 for every $1 to the bottom 20 per cent. That's targeted. That's fair. Similarly, two-thirds of all government transfers go to the bottom 40 per cent. This demonstrates why it's one of the most targeted systems in the world. Few countries direct such a high share of support to those in the lowest income cohorts.

I turn to the bill. At its heart, it really addresses how employment income was treated for people receiving income tests of payments between 1991 and 2020. For decades, Services Australia and its predecessors used a method known as income apportionment, spreading a person's pay across the period it was earned rather than just the day it was received. That method was intended to reflect the real world, where workers are paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly and their hours do not always line up neatly with the government's pay cycles. But, in recent years, questions arose about whether that approach was technically lawful under the Social Security Act. While the method was widespread, there was a risk that debts and payments assessed using that approach could be challenged. This bill, therefore, provides legal certainty. It validates the longstanding use of income apportionment from 1991 to December 2020, ensuring that Services Australia can continue to apply a fair, consistent and administratively sound system. Importantly—and I stress this point—the bill does not validate the income averaging practices that caused the robodebt scandal. It does not validate that. It draws a clear legal and moral line between legitimate administrative methods and the unlawful data matching and averaging that hurt so many Australians.

The robodebt royal commission showed us what happens when governments stop listening, when compassion is replaced by spreadsheets and when vulnerable Australians are treated as statistics instead of human beings. This bill is part of the Albanese government's ongoing effort to rebuild trust in our social security system. It will make sure that people are treated fairly, that debts are based on fact and that those who have been wronged receive a proper resolution. It also establishes an income apportionment resolution scheme. This is a process that will allow the Commonwealth to make resolution payments to people whose debts were affected by these technical issues. That scheme will apply to debts between September 2003 and December 2020, covering the majority of cases that may have been impacted. The aim is to give clarity and closure, to prevent years of appeals and uncertainty and to resolve matters quickly and fairly.

Beyond these technical changes, the bill takes real steps to make the system more compassionate. The bill standardises and indexes the small-debt-waiver threshold at $250, recognising that chasing very small amounts often costs more than it recovers. This reform has been welcomed by the Australian Council of Social Services, who say:

Reform of the small debt waiver provisions is sensible and improves fairness. Currently, the Commonwealth can recover debts as small as $50, with the small debt waiver provisions having remained the same for over 30 years. Lifting the small-debt threshold is long overdue, not only to reduce stress and hardship experienced by people receiving income support, but to also reduce the administrative burden for Services Australia.

It also expands the special-circumstances-waiver provisions in multiple ways, including where a person is facing domestic or family violence, serious illness or other exceptional hardship. In doing so, it responds to recommendation 58 of the 2024 inquiry of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services into financial abuse, and I congratulate Chair Senator O'Neill for the work of that committee and the report. The special-circumstances-waiver reform has also been welcomed by ACOSS, who said:

Currently, someone who underreports their income to Centrelink because of coercive control and is then found to have a debt, cannot be considered to receive a special circumstances waiver for that debt because the person 'knowingly' gave false information. Part 1 updates this schedule to allow for consideration of other circumstances like coercive control and family and domestic violence that led to falsely reporting income and allows the decision maker to waive a debt that arises in these circumstances.

It's small, incremental reforms like this that make me proud to be a Labor senator within this government. The special circumstances waiver isn't going to apply to millions of Australians, but, for those who it does affect, it impacts them greatly. To those people, the government is saying: we hear you, we see you and we're taking action to help. We're also aligning the provisions across the Social Security Act, the Paid Parental Leave Act and the Student Assistance Act so that, no matter which system you interact with, the same standards of fairness apply and the same standards of compassion apply.

In a similar way, the bill proposes to enable certain Commonwealth payments and concession cards to be cancelled where a person is subject to an outstanding arrest warrant for a serious offence. Currently there are no provisions to cancel an individual's payments or concession card in circumstances where there is a warrant issued for the arrest of the individual with respect to a serious, violent or sexual offence and they are evading arrest by police. I think most Australians would agree that it is inappropriate for these individuals to be in receipt of benefits provided by the Australian government. And I note the advice given by the Minister for Social Services in the other place:

We propose this new power to be used only in the most serious circumstances, and only following a thorough and considered decision-making process.

Some stakeholders have raised concerns about the retrospective elements of this bill, particularly the validation of past administrative practices. That's an important debate, and the government has approached it carefully. Retrospective legislation should always be justified. It should be exceptional. In this case, it's justified to prevent years of uncertainty, to ensure consistent treatment of recipients and to protect individuals from unnecessary distress. Without this bill, tens of thousands of Australians could find themselves trapped in appeals or reviews over technicalities that have no bearing on whether they were entitled to their payments. This legislation closes that door, and it does so transparently, with clear exclusions for any practices found to be unlawful.

The bill complements the broader work we're doing to restore integrity in government through Services Australia reform and through the ongoing implementation of the royal commission's recommendations. It fits squarely within Labor's mission, building a fairer society where no-one is left behind in our social services system. At this point, we should recognise the efforts of the Minister for Government Services, Senator Gallagher, whose leadership has resulted in shorter waiting lists at Services Australia. Shorting waiting times are what it's all about. If people have entitlements, there shouldn't be delays in receiving them and in receiving the help they need to access the entitlements that are lawfully theirs.

The bill may be described as technical, but its effects are deeply human. It offers compassion to those facing hardship or violence, it offers closure to those whose lives have been upended by administrative uncertainty, and, crucially, it draws a line under a shameful chapter in our social security history by reaffirming that the Australian government must always act lawfully and always treat people with dignity. For all these reasons, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The social security system in this country is in crisis, and, instead of confronting that crisis, this bill represents yet another attempt by the government to sweep it under the rug—to quietly tuck it away. The government will tell you that the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 is a win. They'll claim that it delivers justice for people affected by income apportionment. But it's not a win, it's not justice, and it certainly doesn't adequately address the harm caused by the government's actions. Income apportionment was used to calculate social security payments when a person's work period didn't align with their instalment period or when it wasn't clear when income was earned. This method was used from 1991 until 2020—30 years of unlawful practice.

It's yet another example in a long line of unlawful actions by successive governments in the social security system: income apportionment, robodebt and the Targeted Compliance Framework. And the pattern continues. There's now a class action seeking compensation for 20,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people forced to work longer hours and do harder labour than city workers under the Work for the Dole program. That's the second class action alleging racial discrimination in that scheme. Every few weeks there's another crisis. Just last month, 44,000 people were found to have overpaid their debts, some by more than $20,000. These are not small mistakes. Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. In the case of income apportionment alone, over $5.5 billion in debts and more than four million individual debts may be impacted.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has identified serious concerns with this bill. It found that the legislation would restrict people's rights to an effective remedy as well as their rights to social security and to an adequate standard of living and health. This is not a report the Labor government can seriously claim as a victory for justice.

The Greens have major concerns about the compensation scheme attached to this bill. In her second reading speech, the Minister for Social Services outlined the following payments: for debts under $200, full repayment; for debts between $200 and $2,000, a payment of $200; for debts between $2,000 and $5,000, a payment of $400; and, for debts above $5,000, a payment of $600. The minister claimed that these rates 'reflect the size of the original debt'. But, unless your debt was under $200, that's simply untrue. The larger your debt, the less you'll be compensated for the government's unlawful conduct. Worse still, the scheme makes no allowance for the broader harms caused to mental health, people's housing stability and access to food, or the devastating impacts of wrongful prosecution.

It's been revealed that the largest debt arising from income apportionment was $151,369. Under this scheme, that person would receive a maximum of $600. That's not restitution; it's an insult. And, if you wish to claim this compensation, you must first agree to waive any future right to hold the government liable. The human rights committee rightly warned that this requirement fails to take into account the vulnerability of social security recipients and provides no safeguards to ensure people can make an informed decision.

The government is endlessly forgiving of its own law-breaking. When it's the government that acts unlawfully, they simply legislate to excuse themselves. But, when it's people on social security who fail to report a change of circumstance or can't repay an unlawful debt, the system comes down on them with full force. Payments are suspended or terminated, even for people undergoing life-saving medical treatment. Prosecution is common. This bill continues that double standard. It retrospectively validates an unlawful practice that should be strongly rejected. Dr Christopher Rudge told the inquiry:

… retrospective laws intrinsically represent an encroachment on the rights and freedoms of citizens they affect.

This bill risks preventing people from overturning criminal convictions based on unlawful debts. It perpetuates institutional injustice—the very injustice the robodebt royal commission exposed. The minister should know better. In 2011, she introduced the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2011 to retrospectively validate 15,000 wrongful convictions. That law was struck down by the High Court in 2013. Yet here we are again, 14 years later, repeating history.

As if that wasn't enough, late last week the government added an entirely new schedule, one that goes even further in disregarding human rights. Under these amendments, the AFP could request the cancellation of parenting payments, paid parental leave and family tax benefit payments for anyone charged—not convicted—with a serious crime. ASIO could do the same for anyone alleged to have prejudiced national security. This crosses a line. Punishing people who have not been found guilty of a crime violates the presumption of innocence, a principle enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and multiple international covenants. These amendments were snuck in at the eleventh hour, without scrutiny by the Senate inquiry or the human rights committee. They also create a real danger for women and children, particularly survivors of family violence. The Council of Single Mothers and their Children warned that false reports already harm too many women, many of them First Nations, who are misrepresented as perpetrators or unfairly drawn into child protection systems. They urged the government to withdraw the amendment until the full consequences for children and primary carers have been assessed.

This idea isn't new. In the 2018-2019 budget the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, proposed similar powers to suspend welfare payments for people with outstanding arrest warrants. Now, Labor has decided to copy the playbook of Scott Morrison, the very architect of robodebt and the same man behind the Targeted Compliance Framework, another dodgy system Labor refuses to halt. Scott Morrison's social security policies are not the test paper Labor wants to be copying from.

Following these last-minute amendments, the Antipoverty Centre released a joint statement opposing them, signed by nearly every major community, advocacy and legal organisation consulted by the government. The signatories included the Antipoverty Centre, Anglicare Australia, Anti-Poverty Network South Australia, ACOSS, the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union, Community Restorative Centre, Consumers of Mental Health WA, Council of Single Mothers and their Children, Disability Advocacy Network Australia, Economic Justice Australia, Everybody's Home, Mental Health Lived Experience Peak Queensland, NATSILS, New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties, Queensland Advocacy for Inclusion, Single Mother Families Australia, Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women's Legal Centre and the Law Council of Australia. When every single expert and advocate the government consults says, 'This is wrong,' the government should listen.

There are some small bright spots in this bill. The first is the increase in the small debt waiver amount, but we make the observation that even that hasn't kept pace with inflation. Advocates and experts told us at the inquiry that if the government were to increase the waiver to keep pace with inflation since it was introduced, it would be closer to $440. The Greens also welcome the introduction of debt waivers for people affected by domestic violence or financial coercion, reforms that the Greens have long called for. But even these long-overdue changes have been cynically bundled into legislation that potentially harms women and children in other ways.

No doubt Labor and the coalition will, once again, team up to pass this bill because, on this issue, they're not that different. Both parties have a long history of perpetrating institutional injustice against people who rely on our social security system. This bill continues that legacy. It excuses government wrongdoing, it entrenches inequality, and it undermines human rights. For all these reasons, the Greens cannot support it unamended. I move the second reading amendment standing in my name on sheet 3501:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes that:

(a) the proposed quantum of resolution payments in the bill will mean that many people impacted by unlawfully calculated debts:

(i) will receive less than the quantum of the overpayment they made to the government, and

(ii) will not be adequately compensated for the additional harm and inconvenience caused; and

(b) a more just approach would be for all affected debts to be waived".

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025. It is a bill grounded in two of Labor's most enduring values—dignity and fairness. Those values are at the heart of why Australians built a social security system in the first place: to make sure that, when life takes an unprecedented turn, no-one is left without help.

The Albanese Labor government believes that dignity should never depend on circumstances. Whether it's a job loss, illness, caring responsibilities or simply bad luck, every Australian deserves a system that treats them with respect. This bill is about restoring that respect. It fixes longstanding flaws in the way our social security debts are managed and strengthens protections for those who have been harmed by coercion and financial abuse. It draws a clear line under the mistakes of the past and builds a fairer foundation for the future.

Before I get into the detail, I want to pause to reflect on what this means in human terms. When we talk about debts or income apportionment, it can sound dry or bureaucratic, but, for the people affected, these are not abstract concepts. They are letters that arrive unannounced, phone calls from private numbers and sleepless nights spent worrying about how to pay back money they should never have owed. In my own state of Tasmania I've spoken to people who still feel anxious every time they see an unknown phone number on their phone, because they've lived through years of being chased over minor or mistaken debts. Many were older Tasmanians, carers, or people living with disability, who'd done their best to comply with complex rules that even experts struggle to understand. That is why dignity matters. When bureaucracy forgets compassion, real people suffer. This bill ensures that that never happens again.

We all remember the harm caused by the unlawful robodebt scheme. It was a national disgrace, a cruel policy, that replaced fairness with automation and compassion with indifference. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme made that clear. It was not just a technical failure; it was a moral one. Our government accepted, or accepted in principle, all 56 of the commission's recommendations. Seventy-five per cent are already implemented or well progressed. We ended the use of external debt collectors; strengthened oversight within Services Australia; and placed dignity, transparency and respect at the centre of service delivery. This bill continues that work. It delivers on recommendation 18.1 of the royal commission report, which says that debt administration must be ethical, proportionate and focused on the needs of individuals. It ensures that we learn from the mistakes of the past and that 'never again' is not just a slogan but a commitment written into law.

The first major reform in this bill is the overhaul of how small debts are managed. Until now, the threshold for automatically waiving a small debt was just $50—a figure set more than 30 years ago and never indexed. In today's terms, it's meant that Services Australia could spend more to recover a $70 debt than the debt was worth. Under this bill the threshold rises to $250 and, for the first time, will be indexed annually to the CPI. That change alone will make a tangible difference. Around 1.2 million small or undetermined debts will be waived or never raised in 2025-26. That means that 1.2 million Australians—many of them low-income earners or single parents—will no longer face unnecessary stress or anxiety over trivial amounts. This reform is not about letting anyone off the hook. Fraud protections remain. It's about recognising common sense—that chasing small, accidental debts helps no-one. It's about using taxpayers' money responsibly while treating people decently.

The bill also expands the special circumstances waiver, giving Services Australia the discretion to waive debts in cases involving coercion, family violence or financial abuse. This matters deeply. For too long, women fleeing violent partners have found themselves burdened with debts that were not theirs to begin with—debts incurred because a perpetrator manipulated their finances, accessed their online accounts or forced them to make false declarations under threat. These reforms say clearly that survivors of financial abuse should not be punished by the very system meant to protect them.

Alongside fairness, this bill also includes a measure to strengthen community safety, with the introduction of the benefit restriction notice. This change allows, in limited and serious circumstances, for payments or concession cards to be suspended when a person is subject to an outstanding arrest warrant for a serious violent or sexual offence and is actively evading police. This is not about punishing poverty or policing disadvantage; it's about ensuring taxpayer funded benefits are not supported for those who pose a risk to the safety of others. The process is tightly controlled. A benefit restriction notice can only be issued on request from a senior police officer and with the authorisation of the minister responsible for the Australian Federal Police. The Minister for Social Services must also consider the likely effect on any dependants before approving a notice. These safeguards mean that compassion and safety work hand in hand. It is a rare power, expected to be used only in exceptional cases, but an important one to protect the integrity of the system and the safety of the community.

Another key reform in this bill addresses the longstanding issue of income apportionment. Between 1991 and 2020, Services Australia and its predecessors used a method of spreading reported income across multiple fortnights when calculating entitlements. The intention was to be fair to recipients whose pay cycles did not line up neatly with Centrelink reporting periods, but, as the full Federal Court confirmed in the case of Chaplin v Department of Social Services, the method was inconsistent with the law as written. Our government has never used income apportionment, but, as the government responsible for restoring integrity to the system, we must resolve the legacy issues it created. Without legislative certainty, millions of old cases—some dating back more than 20 years—could be reopened, causing chaos and distress for people who believed their debts were long settled.

This bill retrospectively validates the old calculations to provide legal certainty, while at the same time recognising that some people may have repaid debts they should not have. To address that, the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme will offer payments of up to $600 to those affected between 2003 and 2020. Economic Justice Australia and ACOSS will receive funding to help people navigate the process. It is a balanced and compassionate solution, acknowledging a genuine administrative mistake without reigniting trauma or diverting scarce resources from the frontline.

Tasmania has one of the highest rates of social security reliance in the country. In some suburbs of Hobart and Launceston, more than one in three households receive some form of income support. When debt rules are unfair or inflexible, the impact lands hardest on small communities like ours. In Glenorchy and Moonah, I have met parents juggling part-time work, studying and caring responsibilities. A missed pay slip or a delay in reporting an income can easily lead to an accidental overpayment. For families already counting every dollar, even a small debt notice can cause enormous worry. By lifting the waiver threshold, this bill gives those families breathing space. It allows Services Australia staff to focus on helping people find work or access training, rather than on processing minor debt adjustments.

The expansion of the special circumstances waiver also means that Tasmanian women escaping violence—those supported by services like the Hobart Women's Shelter or Women's Legal Service Tasmania—will have better protection against being left with debts tied to abusive relationships. By establishing the benefit restriction notice regime, the bill gives our police the tools they need to act when somebody wanted for serious violent or sexual offences is avoiding arrest while still claiming Commonwealth payments. That is about keeping communities safe. In short, this legislation delivers fairness for those who need help, accountability for those who seek to exploit the system, and peace of mind for the vast majority who do the right thing.

At its core, this bill asks a simple question: what kind of government, what kind of country, do we choose to be? On election night earlier this year, the Prime Minister said that Australians had voted for Australian values of fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all. He said we are a country that shows 'courage in adversity and kindness to those in need'. He said that, in uncertain times, Australians chose to look after each other while building for the future. That is exactly what this bill does. This bill is about making sure no-one is held back and no-one is left behind. It's about recognising that people are doing it tough and that many are under pressure and about answering that with practical help instead of judgment. It's about a government that does not walk past hardship and pretend it is a personal failure. It's about a government that sees dignity as a right not a reward.

Kindness is not a weakness. It is a deliberate act of fairness. It is building a system that understands that life is complicated, that people make mistakes, that sometimes people are put in impossible situations and that their government should respond with respect instead of punishment. This legislation puts that into practice. It makes debt recovery more humane. It protects people, especially women, from financial abuse. It wipes small accidental debts instead of chasing people for sums that are barely enough to cover groceries. It keeps the community safe by still considering the impact on dependants. It balances accountability with empathy, safety with fairness and administration with humanity. This bill closes a chapter in the history of our social security system and opens a new one defined by fairness, transparency and respect. It says to every Australian who has ever needed help, 'Your dignity matters.' It says to every public servant tasked with administering payments, 'We trust your compassion and judgement.' It says to every community across the country, 'The safety net will be there when it is needed, run with humanity and care.'

In the wake of robodebt, Australians demanded their government do better. This legislation is one more way where we're keeping that promise, because government should never be about catching people out. It should be about lifting people up. That is the choice we make every day as a Labor government. It is the choice to govern with decency, with fairness and with kindness. I commend the bill to the Senate.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise first of all to acknowledge the work of my colleague Senator Allman-Payne and to endorse the words and the contribution that she's made to the chamber. But I also rise to oppose schedule 5 of the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025, which gives the power to cancel welfare payments for people with outstanding arrest warrants—not people who've been found guilty but simply with outstanding arrest warrants. There's a name for that. It's called punishment without trial, and we've been here before.

The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme was damning. Commissioner Holmes found that robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, that made many people feel like criminals. In essence, people were traumatised on the off chance they might owe money. Now, in a different way, this government is repeating those mistakes. It's a different mechanism but the same callous disregard for fairness and the same assumption that welfare recipients are criminals until proven otherwise. These amendments were added after committee scrutiny finished, after the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee reported and after the Joint Committee on Human Rights examined the bill—after scrutiny of bills, you might say.

This government has deliberately avoided parliamentary oversight for these amendments, and is it any wonder? The coalition tried this in 2018, and they couldn't get it through because at the time Labor thought it was unprincipled and wrong. But of course now Labor's in government they've basically become the coalition, haven't they? In 2018 states and territories opposed it, and this government said in the 2022 budget that they would not proceed with it. So what's changed? What on earth is wrong with the Australian Labor Party? Since 2014 there have been so-called security notice provisions that allow the minister to cancel payments for people who've had visas or passports cancelled on security grounds, essentially terrorism related cases involving ASIO. Those provisions were controversial enough at the time, but this bill massively expands that power. Now the minister can cancel payments for anyone with an outstanding arrest warrant for serious offences. We're moving from a narrow national security power to a broad criminal law enforcement power that removes power from often-essential support for themselves and their families. This could cover potentially thousands of people with outstanding warrants.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It might not too.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This isn't a 'minor technical amendment'; it's a fundamental expansion of ministerial power over welfare payments. Again, I say to those on the government benches who are now interjecting, trying to suggest that there's some decency or fairness in this: maybe listen to what the stakeholders—

Government senators interjecting—

Before those members on the Labor benches interject angrily to try and support this, maybe listen to what some of the stakeholders have said about this before you jump in to defend yet another attack on the most vulnerable from Labor. This isn't a minor technical amendment; it's a fundamental expansion of ministerial power over welfare payments. I say again: Labor snuck it into the bill after it had gone through committee scrutiny. That is a shameful tactic from Labor. A warrant is not a conviction. It's not even a charge, yet this bill strips people of critical supports before they've had their day in court, if they even have one, since we know, of course, many charges fall away well before that stage.

On 29 October, 18 different organisations issued a joint statement calling on the government to abandon this amendment. I repeat: 18 organisations issued a joint statement. We have Labor senators in this chamber barracking for these amendments and barracking for this attack on some of the most vulnerable people in the community. Before they jump up and do that, maybe listen to what Anglicare Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, the Council of Single Mothers and their Children and many others have said. They've raised serious critical concerns, including the impact on victims of family violence. Abusers could use this as an additional tool to harm their victims by reporting them to police to trigger a warrant. Then, suddenly, the victim loses their income, their home and their ability to care for their children on a decision made not by a court but by an AFP officer without any understanding of the family dynamics or by an ASIO officer who has no understanding of the family dynamics—not tested in court, and, often, the person charged probably wouldn't even be able to afford a lawyer.

The Council of Single Mothers and their Children warn that this could see 'too many single mothers and their children, many of them Aboriginal, misrepresented as perpetrators of violence and then effectively stripped of their payments'.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not true.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, I hear Labor senators interjecting and saying, 'That's not true.' Say it to the Council of Single Mothers and their Children. Say that it's not true to Anglicare Australia. Say it's not true to ACOSS. Say it's not true to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, who are telling Labor that this is unfair. They're telling Labor that, just like so many attacks on welfare, it's going to come and hit the most vulnerable.

The robodebt royal commission recommended Services Australia design its policies and processes with a primary emphasis on the recipients it's meant to serve, including avoiding language and conduct which reinforce the feelings of stigma and shame. This bill does the opposite. It treats people as guilty and it targets the most vulnerable. This measure also breaks the fundamental principle that welfare should be based on need and clear criteria, not on ministerial discretion or politics. This measure concentrates power in the minister's hands, with no administrative review, or, if there is review, it's legal review before the courts. We know judicial review is not available to people on welfare and even less available to people who have had their welfare taken off them by the decision of a Labor minister.

We know from overseas exactly who these policies hurt. In New Zealand, similar provisions saw 71 per cent of sanctions applied to Maori people, despite being only 36 per cent of benefit recipients. Their welfare expert advisory group has recommended removing this sanction because of its attacks on New Zealand's First Peoples. In the United States, fugitive felon provisions disproportionately affect elderly and vulnerable people, often unaware of warrants being issued against them. This part of the bill is deeply unconscionable. It should never have found its way into this bill without review. It's a betrayal of commitments Labor has made. It's an attack on the most vulnerable and it should not pass.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025 is an embarrassment and example of the Labor government's hypocrisy and deceit. Before and during the last federal election, Labor used the robodebt scandal—and it was a scandal—as an election weapon to electorally gut the previous coalition government. It worked, and Labor won the election based on the incompetence of the coalition and on what Labor highlighted as the coalition's cruel betrayal of robodebt victims.

So what do we have here? Labor wants to pass this bill to retrospectively validate the unlawful income apportionment method that underpinned the robodebt rip-off. You pretended to oppose it, and now you want to invalidate it—the injustice, deceit and betrayal. To make matters worse, persons ripped off to the extent of thousands of dollars are being offered puny payments to a maximum of $600 when actually owed $15,000 or more. That's not justice; that's theft. Labor is inducing people to take $600 now so people go away and to ensure they never become able to reasonably claim what the government legally owes them. You're conning these people. They're already in misery, and now you're conning them.

Applications for the scheme will only be open for 12 months. Accepting a resolution payment will discharge the Commonwealth from any further liability. That ends it. In other words, the compensation scheme is completely inadequate. Worse, it's deceptive, deliberately dishonest. Many robodebt victims likely voted for Labor to get justice on robodebt. That's what you promised them. Those same people will now never get close to what they're owed. The government is blatantly cheating robodebt victims out of thousands of dollars—in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars.

This is not just an uncaring government, and on this issue its approach is not just lazily getting around paying lawful entitlements. No; this government is working hard to rip off innocent, vulnerable taxpayers. These faulty assessments extend back to September 2003—22 years. Instead of paying back exactly what each victim of the unlawful robodebt calculations is owed, the government is trying to introduce retrospective legislation to make what was unlawful then now lawful. And you wonder why we're upset. This sneaky new bill is making what was illegal legal—the very reverse of your promise before the election. It will try to validate debts which were unlawful when they tried to collect them. I will say that again, in fact. This bill will try to validate debts which were unlawful when they tried to collect them.

With potentially millions of unlawful debts to deal with, the government is using this bill to welch on its debts to innocent Australians who are victims of government dishonesty. There's been little consultation with this bill, and it shows. There is little detail about how the scheme should work, and in some areas detail is totally missing. Instead, much of the detail is left to the minister's use of future legislative instruments to bypass parliament, to bypass scrutiny. Now there's Labor's catchcry: 'bypass scrutiny'—two words that tell us all about Labor in government at the moment. It is the complete opposite of transparency—bypass scrutiny.

The government has not justified why it considers it necessary to rely on retrospective validation of the previously found unlawful means of calculation. The intention is clear: the government wishes to validate previous decisions that were made on an unlawful basis. You want to validate what you were supposed to fix. The rip-off that you were going to fix you are now validating, quietly cementing in place the Liberals' violations that before the election Labor screamed about.

Anglicare Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service and even the Commonwealth Ombudsman have indicated their concerns that the bill does not address cases where income apportionment wrongly resulted in debts and, in some instances, criminal prosecutions. This bill is an example of the government trying to cover up and weasel out of responsibility for the damage caused to innocent Australians who have been victims of the incompetence of governments, both the coalition and Labor.

On this issue, the coalition in government was incompetent, negligent and uncaring. People died because of this—suicide. Labor in government, though, is deceitful, deliberately dishonest. Only One Nation has the integrity to restore sound, honest and caring government. Only One Nation cares about the Australian people. Only One Nation puts our country, Australia, first. One Nation will always act to protect the interests of Australians, and we'll oppose this pathetically woeful bill, this dishonest, deliberately deceitful Labor bill.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025. This bill is another example of the Albanese Labor government's commitment to fairness, accountability and decency in the way we administer social security. It shows again that Labor does what the Liberals never do. We face up to problems honestly, we fix them properly and we always put people first.

This bill addresses the legacy of income apportionment, a technical method used from the early 1990s to 2020 to calculate debts when pay slips didn't specify which workdays they applied to, and the courts have confirmed that this practice had no valid legal basis. It was never used by this government, but it's our responsibility, now we are in government, to fix this and to do this fairly and in a cost-effective way.

I want to be clear that this is not robodebt. It wasn't a deliberately cruel revenue-raising scheme disguised as compliance. It was technical error that Labor is resolving. Robodebt, by contrast, was an unlawful scheme run by the former Liberal government. It relied on automation instead of evidence. It ignored all the warnings and treated vulnerable people like criminals. It destroyed lives. It shattered public trust. That shame belongs squarely to the Liberal and National parties of this place. Labor is not repeating their mistakes. Where they broke the system, we are rebuilding it. Where they acted with secrecy and arrogance, we're acting with transparency and compassion. This bill reflects careful, evidence based work by the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, the Department of Social Services and Services Australia in turning a complex legacy issue into a fair, workable solution,

On that note, I would also like to acknowledge the Minister for Social Services, Minister Plibersek, for her leadership on this piece of legislation. It actually shows what good government looks like. It's grounded in evidence, guided by compassion and focused on results. This legislation is about respect for the people caught up in a confusing system and for the idea that Australians doing it tough deserve fairness. They don't deserve to live in fear.

Behind every debt notice is a person and a family. They're not a statistic. This bill introduces a proportionate resolution scheme. Depending on the size of their debt, affected Australians will receive between $200 and $600, while debts under $200 will be wiped entirely. More than 6,000 people will see their debts cleared all together. To ensure that fairness reaches people and that no-one is left behind, the government is funding Economic Justice Australia and ACOSS to help people understand and access their payments. This bill also clarifies the law so we don't waste years and billions of dollars recalculating tiny, decades-old debts. That's responsible fiscal management—fair to people and fair to taxpayers.

For the first time in over 30 years, the small debt waiver threshold will rise, from $50 to $250. Let me repeat that: we are raising the small debt waiver threshold from $50 to $250, preventing 1.2 million petty debts from ever being raised. And that's amazing. Australians will no longer be chased for amounts that cost more to recover than they're actually worth, and Services Australia staff will be able to focus on helping those who truly need support. I think that that's what we can agree to across this place.

Together these reforms strengthen integrity, efficiency and humanity, making the system work better for the people that it serves. Those opposite talk about value for money, yet, under their watch, we saw the most wasteful, cruel welfare administration in Australia's history. Hundreds and millions were spent defending robodebt in court, and hundreds and millions more were spent on compensation once their own illegal scheme collapsed. Labor is rebuilding the capability they destroyed, restoring the professional Public Service and ensuring that decisions made about people's livelihoods are being made by trained public servants, not algorithms.

Our goal is clear—a social security system that is fair, transparent and efficient, delivering good outcomes for both its recipients and for taxpayers. This bill delivers exactly that. It ensures that Australians who have done nothing wrong aren't left in limbo because of administrative errors from decades ago. It gives Services Australia the clarity it needs to move forward and demonstrates that this government deals with legacy issues quickly, fairly and very sensibly.

As a proud Yamatji Noongar woman and senator for Western Australia, I know fairness must reach every corner of our country—from the city suburbs to the most remote communities. I have spoken to people who rely on social security to keep their family, to recover from illness and to get back onto their feet. For them, even a small debt can mean sleepless nights and shame, made worse in remote or Aboriginal communities by language and distance. And that is why this bill matters. It delivers fairness, rebuilds trust and reminds Australians that their government sees them, values them and will never weaponise the social security system against them.

Labor will always protect the integrity of the system without punishing those who rely on it. We will work to fix what's wrong, and we'll do that fairly. That's the Labor way—responsible, compassionate and focused on the people. For those reasons, I commend this bill to the Senate.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025. This bill contains a number of measures, some of which are very welcome. I recognise that designing an approach to respond to income apportionment is difficult as it could require the government to recalculate potentially millions of debts over many, many years. The retrospective application of this bill to validate income apportionment is a very serious thing for this chamber to do as it will potentially deny justice and rightful compensation to those that have been impacted by this unlawful scheme. However, I note the establishment of the Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme as a means to provide some payments to those that have been impacted. It is a difficult balance of circumstances to weigh, and I think it challenges us to consider what is just and what is fair.

There are some genuinely very welcome measures in this bill, and I want to thank Minister Plibersek, in particular, for the changes that are being made to debt waivers. The introduction of special circumstances provisions will be very welcome for people who are facing financial coercion, family and domestic violence, mental ill health, homelessness or substance dependence. I also welcome the increase in the small debt waiver threshold to $250 with future annual indexation. However, I note that if the $200 threshold had been indexed all along, it would now be over $440.

This has been a very difficult bill to consider, but I recognise that the government is presenting a solution in good faith. I also want to note the amendments by Senator Allman-Payne—and the work that she's done on this bill—some of which I feel genuinely improve the fairness in this bill and strike a much better balance.

With all that being said, the government then went and did something that I think makes it really difficult to support this bill and to look at the evidence, to look at submissions, to see what stakeholders are saying and to say, 'This is a bill I can vote on on behalf of people in the ACT.' At the eleventh hour in the House the government introduced new clauses which would give the AFP minister and the ASIO minister the power to cancel someone's social security benefits if there is a warrant out for that person's arrest. These provisions weren't considered in the inquiry. They were basically just paperclipped to the bill on the way out of the House into the Senate after the inquiry had finished. That is not a good faith move from the government. I don't know if the government thought that no-one would notice or whether it was some sort of deal to get support for the bill, but I really think it is in poor faith and very disappointing, given that the rest of the bill is, I think, genuinely in good faith. You can see the government has grappled with a very hard issue and tried to provide a solution.

I'm most disappointed, though, not because of the sneakiness of trying to insert something at the last minute that hasn't actually been through an inquiry but because this is yet another example of a government treating people on social security like criminals. The bill now seeks to treat someone as guilty before they have been put before a judge and seeks to strip them of their benefits. We're not just talking about JobSeeker; we're talking about the parenting payment as well and even paid parental leave.

The part I find most disturbing is that the measures to protect any dependants, any children, are extremely thin. On current reading, the minister's department has to seek advice on whether a decision the minister makes would impact a person's dependents. But here he's the kicker: it seems like, from the bill, they don't actually have to read that advice. They don't have to consider that advice or even receive that advice into their mailbox. They just need to ask for it. This is not a protection, and this has the potential to harm children. It is something that I simply cannot support. No matter if someone is being pursued for a serious crime, it is not fair, it is not proportionate, it is not reasonable and it is not ethical to put their dependents in harm's way or to leave them without the basic necessities of life.

To quote the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT): 'Under this legislation, people's benefits could be stripped away simply because they are unaware police have issued a warrant for their arrest and without any opportunity to access legal help. The proposed amendments will inevitably have a greater impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who are grossly overrepresented at every stage of the criminal process. Cutting off people's Centrelink payments will not only impact those individuals but put their children and families, too many of whom already live below the poverty line, at risk of homelessness and child removals. Such a controversial proposed legislative change should be the subject of considered consultation with community and legal experts. We call on the government to withdraw this proposal.'

This is from the Council of Single Mothers and their Children, who also raised that powers such as these have every possibility of being weaponised against partners: 'Council of Single Mothers and their Children are perturbed by this proposed amendment which has the to cause further harm to women and children who have already been subject to family violence. We have plenty of evidence that perpetrators of such violence are often skilled at using government systems to weaponise their violence. False reports of child abuse and of violence already see too many single mothers and their children, many of them Aboriginal, misrepresented as perpetrators of violence or taken into child protection. We call on the government to withdraw the proposed amendments—withholding social security payments, concession cards, family assistance payments or paid parental leave payments on the grounds of arrest for any reason—until any unintended consequences for children and their primary carers can be fully and openly assessed.'

I go to Anglicare and what they've said. They've said:

Cutting off someone's income before they have been found guilty of any crime is punishment without conviction. We should not have to explain why this has no place in a fair society. This is a shocking overreach of police powers into the social security system. We've seen too many times what happens when governments rush through changes without thinking through the consequences. Robodebt should have been warning enough. We're calling on the government to withdraw these amendments and commit to a system that upholds people's rights and dignity, not one that tears them away.

This is incredibly disappointing of Labor. On reading the bill, as I said, I think much of it is in good faith. Then you've tacked on this amendment that clearly has no support from organisations who are actually working on the front line with people who will potentially be affected the most by it. I note that the Labor Party actually opposed these measures under the former government.

In the first instance, I'm proposing that we split this schedule back out of the bill, put it in its own bill and send it to an inquiry. As Senator Liddle said earlier in this debate, it is entirely inappropriate that these measures were not put before a committee. The Law Council of Australia has said:

Adding Schedule 5 after a parliamentary scrutiny process vastly undermines the democratic rule of law principles which underpin Australian lawmaking …

The Law Council urges the Senate not to pass the Bill with Schedule 5 included. Instead, Schedule 5 should be separated from the rest of the Bill and referred to a parliamentary committee for proper and careful public scrutiny.

I urge the Senate to heed the advice of the Law Council. Pass these powers if that's what you really want to do but at least do so after an inquiry where we can actually interrogate the measures, where stakeholders can have their say and where we can ensure that we're not putting a single child in harm's way.

I will also be proposing a smaller amendment to make sure that the AFP minister must seek advice and, crucially, consider how any decision they make under these laws will impact a person's dependents. I think this is really the bare minimum, and I really hope that the government and opposition see the sense in ensuring that a decision cannot be made if a dependent is going to be put into poverty, put into danger or left without the basic necessities of life.

Just finally, I want to come back to the robodebt royal commission. When you look at Commissioner Holmes's comments and the recommendations in the report, you see that this is a golden opportunity for this parliament to actually act on the maladministration and the secrecy we saw that had devastating consequences. One of the things that really struck me in Commissioner Holmes's remarks was the way that politicians and the parliament talk about people who are receiving social security payments. She urged us to do better. She urged us to change the way we talk about people in Australia who are receiving support that they're entitled to. As a community we've decided that we want to live in a country where, if you need that support, you're going to get it. Yet, tragically, here we have a bill that's not aligned with that. It's saying that, before you're proven guilty, we're going to strip that away because, in our minds, you're either a criminal or a dole bludger. It's just not good enough. I urge the Senate to reconsider these sorts of things, which, when you add them all up, are exactly what Commissioner Holmes was talking about.

Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I sincerely thank all senators for their contributions to this debate. With the passage of this legislation, the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025, our social security system will be stronger, it will be fairer and it will be more responsive to the needs of the Australian community.

I want to touch on some of the very important measures this bill contains. The bill expands access to the special circumstances waiver to protect victims-survivors of financial abuse and coercion. These debt reforms will make a big difference to many women who have suffered financial coercion and abuse. In doing so, I want to recognise the important work of many people in this chamber and in the House on really highlighting the importance of this issue and the measures that can be taken to respond.

The bill also increases the small debt waiver threshold to $250, to be indexed annually in line with the consumer price index. This change will wipe $1.2 million in under-determined debts from the backlog in 2025-26 alone. In doing so, the government is sparing many thousands of low-income Australian families the stress of being pursued for those small debts.

The bill also takes a fair and reasonable approach to tackling the longstanding error known as income apportionment. By validating the past use of income apportionment, we spare taxpayers the cost of having government recalculate millions of debts going back decades. This validation recognises that a debt was likely still owed, but it was often miscalculated at the edges. The bill provides, as senators have recognised, the important Income Apportionment Resolution Scheme, which has been carefully designed to remedy this issue. The scheme provides a clear pathway for those affected to receive resolution payments. However, no-one is obliged to participate in this scheme or is prevented from exercising any legal rights to pursue a claim relating to their debt.

Finally, I want to address the nature of the measures that we are taking to restrict social security payments to people who have outstanding arrest warrants for serious violent or sexual offences, because I want to put it on the record what this measure does and the types of people that we are talking about. It is very clear in the bill that we are looking to provide for the use of benefit restriction notices so that people who are subject to an outstanding arrest warrant for a serious violent or sexual offence can have their social security and family payments cancelled. This is a power only for the most serious of circumstances. I want to repeat that just so it is clear. It is only to be used in the most serious of circumstances. This change will help uphold the integrity of our social security system, and it means, to be clear, that those who are accused of serious violent and sexual crimes and are evading police cannot benefit from the social security system. We as a government believe that is an important measure to take.

I want to again thank all senators for their contributions. I want to thank all of the people who contributed to this bill. I want to thank the minister for bringing these measures forward. In summing up, I want to thank again the many women in this place for their very hard work that has resulted in the financial coercion and abuse measures, because I know that an enormous amount of work has gone on on both sides of the chamber and in the House to make sure that we can provide, in our social security system, these protections for victims-survivors of financial abuse and coercion—an incredibly important step for this parliament to take. Thank you.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We'll firstly deal with the amendment that was moved by Senator Allman-Payne. The question is that that amendment be agreed to. A division having been called, it will be deferred until tomorrow. The debate is adjourned.