Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget Measures) Bill 2006 before the parliament today, particularly the provisions relating to what we all know as curtilage, is a classic example of the parliament working as it should work and of local members working as they should work. The member for O’Connor was right: the pressure that the backbench put on the government in relation to the issue of curtilage has resulted in this bill before the parliament today. It is a great win for those who have been so badly affected by previous policy, but it is also a great win for the operations of the parliament and the backbench. It shows that the Howard government listens. It shows that, when there is an issue, you can take a matter to the government, argue your case and get a win. I pay tribute to the member for Greenway—who is in the parliament this morning and who was certainly a strong advocate for and a very interested advocate in this particular issue—as well as the member for Forde and the member for Gilmore in getting the outcome that we see before the parliament today.

In going through the process, all of us who had an interest in this issue were concerned that we were seeing people who were absolutely destitute—asset rich but with no income. They had, in a number of cases, an asset they could not turn into cash so that they could actually eat. The problem was that significant. I well remember listening to the member for Forde telling the members of my committee that she was taking food parcels to pensioners, older Australians, who were affected by the curtilage rules at the time. It was really distressing.

When we embarked on what we might do about this we found it very difficult, because whatever we were going to do was going to cost some money. In fact, the measure before the parliament this morning is expected to increase expenditure by $173 million over the next four years. That is the amount of money we as a government are going to have to spend in making sure that this bill operates as we want it to operate. There was a lot of resistance about such a large amount of money and the backbench was faced with having to argue its case to make sure a good outcome could be achieved.

There were a number of options put before the government. We could have exempted the total value of landholding with a long-term attachment rule. We could have allowed an increase, from two hectares to four hectares, in the maximum amount of land that could be exempt from the assets test. That option was looked at. We looked at using the local council to determine the amount of allowable curtilage because, as the member for O’Connor has articulated, local councils have certain planning rules in relation to the subdivision of land. We looked at getting councils to certify that the land may not be subdivided. That option came with very great concerns because we could see that people might influence councils to do things that perhaps might not be what they would normally do so that those people could change their pension arrangements. We looked at an option where the customer could be given the choice of having the value of the home and curtilage exempt or the total value of the landholding reduced by a certain amount. We looked at an option of the assessable amount of excess curtilage and/or farmland being reduced by up to an additional $50,000, indexed to CPI. Finally, we looked at the option of altering the existing hardship provisions in the Social Security Act to try to help people affected by the curtilage rules.

As you can imagine, with so many options available and the government mindful of the cost, there was a lot of discussion on this, and I certainly thank the members of my backbench policy committee, who worked hard on this. Firstly with Senator Kay Patterson, the then Minister for Family and Community Services, and then with the member for Longman, Mal Brough, who is the current Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, we came to the outcome today. The outcome today is of course the most expensive option, which makes it doubly great that the backbench is able to influence the government and get an outcome like this. It is also the simplest option. Many of the other options are complex, and the last thing we need in the Social Security Act is more complexity. If we are able to find something that is straightforward, then that is a good outcome.

This measure will be straightforward and simple. It will allow for the exemption of all the land on the same title document as the family home, with three provisions. The three provisions are that the claimant is of age pension age and claiming age pension care, a payment or a service pension; that they have a long-term attachment to the land of at least 20 years—Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you would have constituents in that situation; and that they can show that the land with commercial potential is being used to generate an income. That protects the taxpayer, of course, and that is what this bill before the parliament this morning seeks to do.

When we announced that this was what we were going to do there was universal delight, as you would expect, among those who are so badly affected by the current curtilage arrangements. It is a joy for members of parliament to be able to deliver such a great benefit to a section of the community who have been so badly affected. I am really pleased to be able to support this measure this morning.

This bill also contains other provisions, one of which sounds pretty horrendous: search and seizure powers. But this particular part of the legislation is really a protection measure and also makes it very clear what the search and seizure powers are. It considers principles along the lines that legislation should only authorise entry to premises under warrant or by consent or in a limited range of other circumstances, such as a condition of a licence, and that legislation that confers coercive powers should require that these powers may only be exercised by appropriately qualified officers. This basically builds in protections in relation to search and seizure powers.

I am also pleased to see that we are extending the exchange of information between agencies. This is a powerful tool to make sure that the Australian taxpayer is properly paying benefits that should be paid. You could say that in a different way; you could say it is to stop people rorting the system. But I would prefer to believe that those numbers of people are small, that most people are honest—and sometimes, with the data-matching that is available, we can find that we are not paying enough benefit and then that benefit can be adjusted.

This bill will allow the Department of Health and Ageing to provide information to Centrelink or one of the departments with responsibility for social security payments. The objective is to compare data on people permanently entering residential aged care with data on recipients of carer allowance. If carer allowance recipients do not notify Centrelink when the person they are caring for leaves their care then they will build up overpayment debts, and nobody wants to see that. That could of course be quite accidental, not intentional. The bill also allows Medicare Australia access to protected information held by the Child Support Agency. That sounds a bit nasty but it is not. For the purposes of administering welfare payments, information can be gathered on a range of topics under the social security law.

I am pleased to support this legislation. The curtilage aspect has been a long time coming. It is very welcome and I thank the government for listening to the backbench.

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