Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I could have a couple more minutes because we have so many excellent questions and I will not have time to answer all of them. I would just like to run through some of them.

Let me say to the member for North Sydney that there are a number of questions here that require more detailed responses, and I will take them on notice and send them to you because we are running a bit short of time. I just want to clarify: with regard to the stored value card, which I think you called the ‘access card mark 2’, that is certainly not the way we see it. This debit card is designed to improve income management. The member for Bass also asked about this. With regard to the debit card, the contract is being developed at the moment. We are investing more than $17 million to improve the delivery of income management by providing a personalised PIN-protected debit card for customers to use when purchasing essential goods and services. Certainly the work on negotiating the contracts for designing the system and so on is well underway at the moment, and I can provide you with more information about that in the future.

You have asked about the data-matching program as well. There are two elements to the data-matching program announced in the budget—that is, data-matching with the banks and the ATO. I think you asked another question about the cross-agency area; I will give you more written information on that. There was a question about whether the government is going soft on shirkers, and that is certainly not the case. We are of course very concerned that people who are able to work do work. We have changed some of the design features of the previous government’s system that drove people into poverty and into homelessness through the lack of flexibility and discretion that was allowed in the case of the eight-week breaching process.

The child support reforms: the letters have gone out relating to the child support reforms. Of course, that is underway at the moment. The mail-out ended on 22 May. Letters were sent to about 1½ million separated parents, who, of course, are responsible for 1.1 million children who are affected by that. With regard to the e-claiming process you asked about, the Australian government is investing $8.6 million over four years towards streamlining electronic claiming processes. The investment will benefit medical providers and their patients by making e-claiming easier and more efficient, removing the need for patients to visit a Medicare office in person to claim their benefits. We are reducing the workload of medical staff and streamlining the claiming process, so that benefits both the medical staff and the families who are making those claims. The member for North Sydney asked a number of other questions about Australian Hearing, the drought buses and the Centrelink office in Wadeye. Because of time issues, I will get back to you in more detail on those.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Immigration and Citizenship Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $1,708,603,000

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