I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026. The bill comprises nine schedules to make minor and technical amendments across social services, child support and family assistance legislation to ensure the legislation reflects the administrative practices being undertaken for the delivery of payments.

Schedule 1 of the bill amends the family assistance act to allow the automation of applications for advance payments so people can apply for payment online as well as over the phone or in person. More than 2.7 million advance payments were processed in the previous financial year, an essential lifeline for people who find themselves in a difficult situation with urgent bills to pay, like electricity and gas bills; with repairs to their home or in replacing essential items, like their fridge; with unexpected medical costs or in buying work supplies, like boots or tools, for their new job.

These changes will allow requests for advance payments to be made online so people can apply for them when they need them and in a way that best suits their circumstances. The changes in this schedule will also support people by introducing more flexibility to repayment amounts. If people find they are in a position to make their repayments quicker, they will be able to do so. Equally, if they need more time to repay the debt, that can be approved too.

Schedule 2 of the bill will amend the Administrative Review Tribunal Act and the family assistance act to allow the secretary to alter certain social services decisions undergoing a review at the Administrative Review Tribunal to ensure decisions reflect the most up-to-date information available. It is hoped that this will expedite some decisions that end up at the ART and ensure that both the ART and Services Australia have the most up to date information when considering appeals of decisions.

Schedule 3 will amend the family assistance act to ensure the agency can use pre-issue income data from the Australian Tax Office to complete reconciliations of a person's entitlement to family tax benefit. Pre-issue income data is the income a person has on file with the ATO. Essentially, it uses what has been reported by your employer as your income to date to determine what your annual income is. This information could also be used to determine a person's entitlement to FTB or the single income family supplement and apply end-of-year notification requirements to recipients who are not required to lodge a tax return. The use of a person's pre-issue income data will help Services Australia make more accurate payment decisions and should lead to fewer debts being created. Most importantly, these changes do not take away a person's right to seek review of any decision or appeal the decision should they disagree with it.

Flowing on from that, schedule 4 of the bill will amend the family assistance act to allow the pre-issue income data to be used for childcare subsidy reconciliations and to ensure a person's entitlement is updated when their income changes. Again, this will help ensure a person's payment is accurate and large debts aren't created. While stakeholders support the use of pre-issue income data at a general level, Economic Justice Australia and Single Mother Families Australia have raised some concerns about the long-term use of pre-issue income data where it differs from a person's final assessment amount. I would strongly encourage the Minister for Social Services and her department to carefully consider this point because it is important that we have correct assessments. A person's final assessment amount should be used as soon as possible to make a determination on their payment entitlement.

Schedule 5 of the bill will amend the child support act to allow a person's pre-issue income data to be used for child support assessments. This change is particularly important. Single Mother Families Australia, Relationships Australia and even the Commonwealth Ombudsman are supportive of these changes because getting child support payments right matters. Relationships Australia have said the use of pre-issue income data will help address the weaponisation of the child support system by thwarting a payer's attempt to delay assessment of their tax obligation by ensuring that we have more current and more accurate child support assessments.

Under the Albanese Labor government, child support debt has skyrocketed. Outstanding child support debt has hit record high levels, with more than $2 billion now owed by parents. That's $2 billion that should be in the pockets of parents and carers to raise children. We are in a cost-of-living crisis where we know families are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table. Far too often, we hear about parents who are doing the wrong thing—going on overseas holidays, buying new cars and boats, and failing to lodge their tax returns so their payments don't go up.

Around 230,000 parents owe a debt, with the average debt now sitting at $8,675. Astoundingly, the highest debt owed is $2 million. Ten parents have debts of more than $1 million, and another 190 parents owe more than $150,000 in child support payments. Of the 230,000 parents that owe a debt, only 33,000 have wage garnishing orders in place to recover the debt from their pay. That's just 14 per cent of parents with a debt. Worse still, there are only just over 4,000 departure prohibition orders in place to stop parents travelling overseas if they owe a debt. That's less than two per cent of debtors. Child support payments are not optional. Parents have a moral and legal obligation to pay child support. This money is to help raise, feed and clothe your children. It has nothing to do with your ex-partner; it is always about putting your children first. The Albanese Labor government needs to use every power it has to start collecting on these debts, because this is unacceptable.

Schedule 6 of the bill will amend the family assistance act to enable merit reviews of decisions to use tax refunds to offset family assistance debts like the family tax benefit. Schedule 7 of the bill will amend the Paid Parental Leave Act to ensure that a person's paid parental leave superannuation contribution reflects the settings of the scheme. This will ensure that, if a person's paid parental leave amount is changed after their initial claim, the superannuation contribution is based on the actual entitlement. Schedule 8 will make minor amendments to the Social Security Act to confirm in the legislation that a restriction on requesting urgent payments is triggered once a person has been paid their 10th urgent payment rather than when their next request is rejected. Schedule 9 of the bill will fix minor cross-referencing errors in the legislation between this bill and the last technical bill in 2025. As I said at the outset of my speech, this bill is technical in nature, and the coalition will support these changes.

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026. I begin by moving my second reading amendment on sheet 3923:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Government to:

(a) release any reports arising from the Department of Social Services consultation on the future of income management; and

(b) respond to the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights in the report of its inquiry into compulsory income management tabled in September 2024; and

(c) introduce legislation to:

(i) abolish the partner income test for all social security payments, ensuring that a partner's income will no longer be required to be considered for a social security payment for an individual in recognition that the test forces people to be financially dependent on their partners,

(ii) abolish the parental income test for Youth Allowance for those 18 years and over or not living at home, and

(iii) reinstate a six-year limitation period on debt recovery proceedings as recommended by the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme".

This bill is more proof that Australia's social security system is too complex and often inaccessible. Services Australia can't seem to grasp social security law—and they're the ones administering it. Every day, people who are sick, working, parenting, elderly, disabled or just trying to live their lives are punished for making minor mistakes. This government has made the deliberate choice to keep all social security payments below the poverty line. It's Anti-Poverty Week. The fact that we even have to have an anti-poverty week should be a source of shame. It's the start of Anti-Poverty Week, and instead of ending government induced poverty the Minister for Social Services has announced meagre funding for emergency relief charities that amounts to less than $1 per welfare recipient, while people in this country are dying from poverty.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's latest report on mortality outcomes showed that people accessing the JobSeeker payment are up to 10 times more likely to die than people not on any income support. Almost three in five people aged 22 to 64 who passed away between 2012 and 2022 were accessing income support. Social security is supposed to help people. It's in the name—'security'. But governments, including this one, continue to impose strict conditions policing the ways people can get support and what people must do to get that support. It's gatekeeping, and it's killing people. Poverty is always a political choice.

The Greens support the part of this bill that makes accessing advance payments easier for people facing sudden costs. But the reality is that social security payments are so ridiculously low that people are trapped in cycles of applying for and paying off advanced payments. People rely on advanced payments because they can't afford the everyday necessities. Every necessary expense becomes unaffordable without an advance. People are trapped in a constant state of crisis—and that's even more true for remote areas of Australia, where living costs are up to 40 per cent higher.

Today I met with the Central Land Council, who are asking the government, yet again, to please raise the Remote Area Allowance, and not just by indexation, which the government regularly likes to claim is an increase. Indexation is simply trying to keep up with inflation. People in remote areas need a meaningful increase to the Remote Area Allowance. Go to Warraber Island. It's $10, minimum, just for a carton of milk and $70 for a piece of steak. These are things that the government should and needs to act on.

Many remote communities rely on diesel generators or diesel fuelled trucks to deliver produce to the local store. Now, because of the war in Iran, which this government was first out of the gate to support, those costs are higher than ever. In the Territory, even funeral costs have gone up. First Nations families are having to fork out $10,000 for a basic funeral just to bury their loved ones on their own country, yet the government has refused to allow the Remote Area Allowance to keep pace with these costs. Shamefully, the Remote Area Allowance sits at a maximum of $9.10 extra each week—not even enough for a carton of milk in places like Warraber Island—and has only ever been increased twice, unlike other payments that are indexed yearly. Remote communities are no less deserving of fresh food and fuel than people living in cities. A real social security system—one that was designed to provide people with security—would ensure that everyone has enough to live a good life regardless of their postcode.

The Australian government must also use every lever at its disposal to end femicide in this country. Government support should not be restricted based on someone's relationship status, yet the unfair and discriminatory practice of partner income testing forces women and disabled people into financial dependency. The evidence tells us this. Advocates tell us this. The government needs to listen. Nobody should be financially punished for who they love, but that's what the government is doing.

Research by disability advocate Sophia Redjeb has highlighted the significant harm wielded by partner income testing against people who are just trying to get support. People subject to partner income testing describe financial dependency, hardship, relationship strain and safety concerns. Alarmingly, 44 per cent of respondents said that the partner income test had made them feel unsafe or prevented them from leaving a relationship. This practice, at its best, forces financial dependency on partners. At its worst, it facilitates financial abuse and denies victim-survivors the means to escape dangerous situations. Perpetrators of family violence may withhold financial records or lie to the victim-survivor about their income, resulting in the victim-survivor unknowingly misreporting their joint income to Services Australia. When the victim-survivor accrues a debt as a result, they are left to deal with the consequences—yet another financial harm inflicted by their abuser, and the government lets that happen.

The government repeatedly justifies partner income testing by saying it's a work incentive, but 46 per cent of disabled Australians cannot work and rely solely on the disability support pension to survive. Even disabled people who have been assessed by Services Australia as having zero hours job capacity, meaning the government recognises that they are medically exempt from work, are still subject to partner income testing. This government has repeatedly talked about lived experience. Report after report calls for people's lived experience to be recognised as expertise; that people are experts in their own lives and know best what support they need. But this government refuses to listen to disabled people and victim-survivors of domestic violence when they tell them they need an end to partner income testing to be safe.

When asked about partner income testing in the report The human cost of the partner income test, disabled people said, things like, 'My partner's income doesn't make me any less disabled.' They said no government agency has explained why it is the partner's sole responsibility to ensure the welfare recipient's financial wellbeing. Well, that's because the government knows that it doesn't make sense. This respondent put it best: 'I will never be in an equal relationship until this test is eliminated.' The Greens believe in relationship equality and equal access to social security. Partner income testing must be abolished so that Services Australia can focus on delivering support, not probing into people's love and sex lives.

This bill also makes it easier for the government to recoup debt from single mothers' tax returns. Governments have learnt nothing from robodebt, and social security bill after social security bill remains hell-bent on debt recovery rather than supporting people who need it. Schedule 3 of this bill is more of the same, allowing the government to automatically take money out of women's tax returns to pay off family tax benefit debts, some of which we know have been calculated incorrectly.

Some of the families harmed by robodebt are still waiting for compensation. Mothers who lost loved ones because of a punitive scheme designed to extort income support recipients have been barred from the class action, but they are not invisible, and the Greens will keep fighting for them until the robodebt royal commission recommendations are implemented in full. That includes full and fair compensation for everyone touched by the scheme, and it includes making sure something like robodebt never happens again.

For this reason, the Greens support reinstating the six-year debt recovery limitation, a recommendation of the robodebt royal commission that still remains outstanding. The Greens want to see social security reform that focuses on creating a system that makes sure help is there for all of us whenever we need it, not a system that forces hundreds of thousands of Australians to live well below the poverty line; not a system that sees one in six kids living in poverty; not a system that forces people into the punitive Targeted Compliance Framework, which this government still cannot reassure us is lawful; and not a system that forces people to reveal intimate details about their love and sex lives for a partner income test that we know forces women into situations of domestic violence that are unsafe and forces people with a disability into unsafe relationships with partners. These are all things that a government that genuinely does not want to leave a single Australian behind would do. That is the job of government.

Our Constitution says people are entitled to social security. This government needs to deliver on that and not continue to prop up a system which it cannot say with certainty is lawful, which requires bill after bill after bill to come into this place to fix the errors and which continuously gives the government and the department a free pass for those errors when the system that they oversee punishes and punches down on people who rely on welfare and who are living in poverty in a cost-of-living crisis that is grinding them further and further into the ground. A government that genuinely cared about every citizen in this country—a government that, when the Prime Minister says the Labor Party does not want to leave anybody behind, truly believed that—would raise the rate of income support, abolish the partner income test, abolish mutual obligations and finally deliver a social security system that lifts people up instead of continually punishing them.

The Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026 includes technical amendments to ensure that social security, family payments and child support programs operate as intended. It includes amendments to improve the operation of advanced payments and family tax benefit processes and to address technical issues across the child support and family payment systems. The government remains committed to ensuring our social security system is up to date and fit for purpose. This is a technical bill that ensures the systems that people rely on are up to date and working effectively, ensuring people have confidence in government processes and systems that underpin them. The government will always do what it can to help those most in need, which is why we continue to deliver targeted and responsible support for social security recipients and have announced the most significant reforms to the child support system in many years, aimed at closing loopholes that can be weaponised to cause financial abuse. The government will continue to take opportunities to address technical issues across the social security and family payment system while also considering opportunities for broader policy reform that is in the best interests of the Australian people.

I'll now put the question that the second reading amendment moved by Senator Allman-Payne be agreed to.

Question negatived.

The question now is that the bill be now read a second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.