Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2006 is an omnibus bill which makes minor and technical amendments to family assistance and social security legislation. No new policy initiatives or changes to existing policy are enacted by this bill. The opposition supports this bill, the purpose of which is to make minor and technical amendments to social security and family assistance legislation to remove anomalies, repeal provisions which are redundant and clarify a number of aspects of the legislation which are not in line with the government’s current policy. The most significant of these are amendments to the child-care benefit provisions—for example, to ensure that care provided as part of a compulsory education program at a school does not qualify for child-care benefit and to ensure that the amount of child-care benefit paid for a particular period does not exceed the amount actually paid for approved care in that period.

The bill also provides for the inclusion of de facto couples in the definition of ‘temporarily separated couple’ for the purposes of certain supplementary payments available to couples who are temporarily separated to bring the eligibility requirements for certain supplementary payments into line with other social security and family assistance payments, which of course do recognise de facto couples.

The bill includes residents of Lord Howe Island in the eligibility criteria for remote area allowance. I will ask a question on that issue a little later. The bill clarifies that carer allowance is not payable during periods of imprisonment. It also clarifies the rules regarding low-income and automatic issue health care cards for youth allowance recipients. It clarifies that youth allowance job seekers are entitled to an automatic issue health care card. It involves the repeal of a series of redundant housing acts and the alignment of the definition of ‘homelessness’ for the purposes of special benefit payments, with the meaning of ‘homelessness’ applying more broadly, such as for youth allowance and young disability support pensions.

As I have noted, the bill makes a number of minor changes to child-care administration specifically, giving the minister the power to determine a class of individuals who are taken to have recognised training commitments or study commitments. This is an extension of the existing power the minister has to determine by legislative instrument that individuals in a particular class have recognised work or work related commitments. The classes are not exclusive and are intended to clarify that persons in a certain category are deemed compliant with the work, study or training test which must be satisfied in order for an individual to claim maximum hours of subsidised child care.

Secondly, the bill clarifies that child-care benefit is not available in respect of care provided as part of a compulsory education program. This provision is intended to clarify existing child-care policy which is that child-care benefit cannot be claimed for care given by a teacher as part of a compulsory school program. Generally, a school and an approved child-care service are separate entities. However, there are an increasing number of schools offering programs with compulsory attendance outside of school hours, supervised by teachers, which should not be classified as child care and attract either child-care benefit or the 30 per cent tax offset.

The bill also gives the departmental secretary the power to determine that an approved child-care service is a sole provider in a particular area if the secretary is satisfied that the service would be likely to close if such a determination were not made. Currently, the minister has this power. The amendment substitutes ‘the minister’ with ‘the secretary’.

The bill also limits child-care benefit for care provided by a registered carer to the fee amount paid. This is an obvious point, but the potential currently exists for users of registered care to be paid more child-care benefit than they pay in child-care fees. The amendment appropriately removes this possibility.

I mentioned Lord Howe Island earlier and the issue of remote area allowance. Lord Howe Island is included in special tax zone A and should also be included within the social security definition of ‘remote area’ so that residents can attract remote area allowance as part of their social security payments. The bill makes this inclusion clear by amending the definition in subsection 14(1) of the Social Security Act. The query that arose in my mind when I looked at this part of the bill was whether Lord Howe Island residents had been getting the remote area allowance up till now or not. Is the law changing to reflect the current practice or is in fact the practice being changed? I would appreciate the minister being able to provide a response to that in his summing up remarks.

The amendments remove anomalies and clarify the legislation in line with established policy. They make technical corrections and refinements. For example, child-care benefit for registered care is limited to the fee paid. Child-care benefit is precluded from care provided as part of a compulsory education program. The concept of a temporarily separated couple who attract a higher rate of some supplementary payments such as rent assistance and remote area allowance can include a temporarily separated de facto couple. The correct range of Commonwealth payments are taken into account as income for the low-income health care card, and the meaning of ‘homelessness’ for the purposes of special benefit is aligned with the meaning of ‘homelessness’ that applies more broadly, such as for youth allowance. Certain redundant housing acts are repealed and necessary technical corrections are made, including many that are consequential to the commencement of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003. The bill is stated to have negligible financial impact. The member for Mitchell in his remarks referred to the impact of the government’s Welfare to Work changes—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

I was indicating that it was my intention to follow up some of the comments made by the member for Mitchell on this bill in relation to the government’s Welfare to Work proposals. Unlike the member for Mitchell, I do not have a rosy view about what the end product of the Welfare to Work proposals will ultimately be. Indeed, I think its principal impact is that many people who are disabled and many single mothers will be put on to allowances rather than pensions and that they will experience a cut in their incomes. That will be the most immediate and lasting impact, and that is really all that the government is managing to achieve—a cut in their pay.

It strikes me as ironic, when we have debates on things like Welfare to Work and incentives generally, that it appears to be the view of the Liberal Party in relation to incentives that people at the top end of the income scales need more money to act as an incentive for them to work harder. We see this with the pay packets of Sol Trujillo and others. I remember people saying, ‘It’s bad enough that I have to come here to work; do you expect me to work as well?’ Some of the bonus payments and the arrangements for some of our chief executives seem to be structured in that way. They get millions of dollars and, if they in fact do their job, they get millions of dollars extra. But the incentive structure means more money for them, whereas at the bottom end of the income ranges people are told by the Liberal Party and those opposite, ‘Really, the way to give you incentives is to pay you less.’

We see this in the way that the government has approached Welfare to Work, in that it proposes to cut payments for people who are disabled and for single mothers. This acts in tandem with its Work Choices changes and with its quadrupling of the skilled migration program. All of those things are acting to put downward pressure on wages and make it harder for people at the bottom.

In relation to how the Welfare to Work changes are actually working, my colleague the member for Melbourne Ports asked the member for Mitchell a question about the two cases which have been raised in the House by Kim Wilkie, the member for Swan, in the last week or so. He made revelations concerning the way Centrelink had treated a leukaemia sufferer in his electorate, 16-year-old Matthew Pearce. Those revelations about how a leukaemia sufferer had been treated were quite disturbing. His disability support payment had been rejected, and there were also expectations concerning his attendance at Centrelink, notwithstanding his state of health. After this matter was drawn to the attention of the Minister for Human Services, there was intervention which led to Matthew Pearce receiving the disability support pension.

The difficulty with this arrangement is that we have thousands of people who require disability support payments or who may be eligible for them, and the government needs to have the right policies and procedures in place. It should not be necessary for people to have to raise these matters in parliament or on current affairs programs in order to secure justice.

Indeed, after the member for Swan raised the case of Matthew Pearce, he was contacted by another constituent of his, Brenda Hendricks. Ms Hendricks was diagnosed in February this year with a highly aggressive, incurable brain tumour. I understand the tumour is rare and highly malignant, which was obviously a terrible thing to experience and to be told about. Her initial contact with Centrelink involved them informing her that she was ineligible for the disability support pension but might be entitled to a Newstart incapacitated allowance. She followed all the instructions but informed Centrelink that she was unable to visit the Victoria Park office as she was still recovering from major brain surgy. She was then told, on this initial contact, that it was not necessary for her to attend an in-person eligibility assessment and that it could be conducted entirely over the phone. Subsequently, she was contacted by Centrelink and asked to attend in person to sign all the paperwork and to complete a follow-up interview. Centrelink insisted that she attend in person, even when they were advised of the severity of her condition. They assured her that by prebooking an appointment time she would not have to wait. Despite these undertakings, she had to wait for almost an hour. She was offered an apology and told that Centrelink were unaware of the severity of her condition. In fact, Ms Hendricks had informed them on four separate occasions.

She was then informed that she would have to lodge a fortnightly claim form, and she objected to this. They said, ‘Well, you can report every three months provided the form is accompanied by a doctor’s certificate.’ After this, Centrelink began sending her letters threatening to recover payments as she had not lodged the fortnightly claim forms—that is, the forms that she had been told she would not have to lodge. The work capacity assessor was surprised by the severity of her condition and that she had been requested to be assessed. She was told at that meeting that the assessor would state in her report that Ms Hendricks was unfit to work for at least six to 12 months. Two weeks later she was informed that an appointment had been made for her to meet with Centacare to create a resume for her, to go through possible job options and to enrol her on Job Search. She was distressed by this appointment being made for three reasons: first, she had been promised by the assessor that she would be considered unable to work for six to 12 months; second, she had informed Centrelink that she would not be able to attend in-person meetings because of the severity of her condition; and, third, her own situation—as she is a qualified psychologist, if she were not ill, she would not need any assistance in getting a job. This situation distressed her. It added to the difficulties she was experiencing dealing with her condition and the undergoing of treatment. She broke down in her oncologist’s office. The hospital welfare officer was called in to assist her and, with the assistance of the hospital welfare officer, she successfully applied for the disability support pension on the basis that her condition was deemed permanent.

A month later, after she began receiving the disability support payments, she was again contacted by Centrelink and informed that another interview had been set up for her with Centacare, the job placement provider, and that if she did not attend her payments would be suspended and Centrelink would proceed to retrieve all previous payments. She contacted Centrelink to reiterate her circumstances and was informed that under the new Welfare to Work laws, which had come into effect on 1 July, she must attend the meeting. The meeting had been scheduled for 26 June, so she said that the legislation did not yet apply. In tears, she phoned the hospital’s welfare officer, who at least managed to get the appointment cancelled. She is highly confused as to why she had been asked to attend such a meeting, given her condition and indeed given the fact that the legislation applies only to people who had been in receipt of payments for more than two years, while she had been receiving them for only less than a month.

Frankly, this simply is not good enough. It smacks of a lack of compassion. It smacks of a failure to seek to understand people’s personal circumstances and to deal with people who apply for disability support in a humane and caring way. It is the responsibility of the minister to get these things right. We see that the minister has been given additional responsibilities in workplace relations. Frankly, there are so many issues being raised in relation to Centrelink and the other areas of the minister’s portfolio that he needs to get his day job sorted before he is given additional responsibilities. These cases are a matter of great concern to the opposition and we will certainly be raising them with the government, both publicly and privately, to seek to ensure that the new Welfare to Work laws do not have an unjust, harsh and unfair impact on people who are entitled to and deserving of our support.

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