Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to support the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (Election Commitments and Other Measures) Bill 2011. It is always very satisfying to speak on bills such as this one. This is another example of this government’s delivery of some very important election commitments and another example of this government’s focus on the future. Legislation such as this reinforces the responsive, positive and progressive nature of this government and I thank the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs for her commitment to delivering for families and seniors, particularly, of course, those in my electorate of Greenway.

This bill gives effect to three election commitments and two non-budget measures. All of these commitments will operate to greatly improve the lives of many Australians. This bill will deliver on our plan to expand the existing seniors work bonus, provide better access to family payments for families with a teenager aged 16 to 19, and deliver on our commitment to improve the provision of the baby bonus for eligible families. As a result, many seniors, families with teenagers and families who have just had a baby or are thinking about having a baby will be better off. I am extremely glad to support this bill because it will greatly improve the financial and personal circumstances of many of my constituents.

Firstly, this bill will expand on the seniors work bonus introduced in 2009 and continue to fulfil the work of the secure and sustainable pension reform package. This reform package contains some of the most significant changes to the pension since it was introduced some 100 years ago and is a vital investment in preparing Australia for the future. This bill will ensure that the first $250 earned in a fortnight will not be treated as income for social security and veterans’ affairs income tests. This bill will make certain that seniors can still receive the benefits they are entitled to in their respective pensions, but can also still enjoy the dignity that employment can provide. It does this by increasing the amount of income a pensioner may earn before their income is affected in any accessible fortnight. This bill also enables pensioners to roll over any unused fortnightly work bonus between fortnights, to a maximum of $6,500. As the Prime Minister noted prior to the election last year:

“Many age pensioners take on part-time and occasional work and should be encouraged and rewarded for these valuable contributions to our community.

“A re-elected Gillard Labor government will introduce a new, more generous work bonus for age pensioners from 1 July 2011.

“Hard-working pensioners will now be able to keep up to $6,500 of the money they earn from part-time work each year. This benefit can be ‘annualised’ to especially help with seasonal work.

It is for this very reason that this bill is so important. It will allow seniors the opportunity to participate in the workforce without worrying about forgoing their pension entitlements in the process.

This is a very important development for many seniors in my community, an electorate where some 15,000 people are of qualifying pension age. According to the 2006 census in Blacktown, the age group which is increasing the most is the 80- to 84-year-old age bracket. This is reflected in the amount of correspondence and representations I have had with seniors in my electorate who are concerned that their one-off work—often helping a community organisation—has resulted in them earning too much income and consequently seeing their pension decreased. This has caused much stress for many elderly people in my community. These are people who want to keep active and still enjoy the dignity of work but may have been stung by the unintentional consequences that have existed until now. This bill will restore some common sense, be responsive to those concerns and ensure that seniors on the pension can still contribute to the community in this way.

In guaranteeing people the security to participate in the workforce on a casual basis without the fear of losing their pension, we can help stimulate the community and put seniors’ minds at ease. There have been a number of instances in the past where senior citizens who have taken up the seasonal work, including as a department store Santa Claus, have had their pension reduced, such as 80-year-old Mr Ted Carver. As was reported in the media early last year, Ted worked six weeks of the year as Santa and was understandably concerned about being worse off financially as his pension was reduced under the old rules on earnings. This bill will directly remedy this issue and in effect become our work bonus Santa clause.

Some seniors in my electorate have also raised concerns regarding their ability to receive their pensions while still being able to devote a few weeks of the year to supervising exams at their local high school. These constituents are doing a fantastic community service in facilitating exams for local students and they were in effect being punished for enriching the lives of students in Greenway. This bill will ensure that any fears they had with respect to losing their pension will no longer impact on them.

As we prepare to celebrate Seniors Week in my electorate, which is of course this week, we take the time to praise seniors for their valuable contributions to the electorate of Greenway. This bill is a well-timed gift to those seniors who contribute to our community through the avenue of casual paid work. In an electorate where some 13,000 residents are over the age of 65, I believe we have a special obligation to provide them with suitable services to ensure they can live a happy and healthy life. Indeed, in this place only a short while ago today, I commented on how my electorate is often referred to as Australia’s nursery because of its very young population; but it is also a population that is getting older and living longer. As our population ages, there will be increased economic and social challenges that we must meet. It is our job to ensure that seniors are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve, and we can achieve this by providing them with the right services and care, as well as sound public policy, which is why this bill is so important.

The second election commitment this bill will deliver on will significantly improve the situation of many families in my electorate. As parents will tell you, the cost of raising children is not cheap and it does not lessen when they become teenagers. The financial burden of trying to provide every opportunity for young people weighs heavily on the shoulders of many families, and this bill will alleviate some of that financial burden for the benefit of parents and their children. In the past, when a child turned 16, the maximum rate of family tax benefit part A dropped from $208 per fortnight to $51 per fortnight. It is no wonder then that this sharp drop in financial assistance during such an important time in a student’s life was complained about as extremely counterproductive. This bill is a direct response to that. It will increase family tax benefit part A by around $160 per fortnight for teenagers aged 16 to 19 who are in secondary school or the vocational equivalent. This bill has consequently aligned the 16- to 19-year-old rate with the 13- to 15-year-old rate, greatly extending the benefits for our young people up until the time they finish school. In doing so, this government has delivered on its promise made during the last election to provide better access to family payments for families with teenagers.

Providing all the social benefits we can to our young people is a very important obligation, and the most important benefit, I believe, that we can provide and must provide is a quality education. As I have said a number of times in this place, education is the great enabler. This bill will make paying for an education and the costs associated with that education a more manageable task for families. Over the next five years, this bill will benefit the families of around 590,000 teenagers who will receive up to $4,000 a year in additional assistance. This is a big step forward for Australian families and our young people.

The third election policy this bill will deliver on is improvements to the baby bonus for eligible families. This measure will assist families with the upfront costs of having or adopting a new baby. While the total amount of the baby bonus will remain the same, parents of new babies will receive more in the first fortnightly instalment than in the 12 subsequent fortnightly instalments. What this means for new families is that more money will be available to them in the often difficult first stages of welcoming a child into the family. Many of my friends and constituents who have recently started families have in fact told me how difficult they have found the early stages of raising a child. Not only does the arrival of a new child create added pressures and sleepless nights, it undoubtedly hurts the hip pocket. While this bill will not help new parents get a full night’s sleep, it will put many minds at ease and it will allow the expensive initial transition stages to run more smoothly as more income is made available.

I am also very satisfied about mentioning the two nonbudget measures given effect by this bill. In 1957, thalidomide was introduced on the Australian market and was soon prescribed to pregnant women to combat morning sickness. It was due to the research of Australian clinicians that thalidomide was discovered to be responsible for thousands of children being born with horrific abnormalities around the world. As part of this bill, 36 Australians affected by the morning-sickness drug thalidomide will receive annuity payments from British company Diego PLC. Ordinarily, such payments would be assessable as income for social security and veterans’ affairs purposes, and for income tax purposes. Under this bill, these annuity payments will be excluded from the above-mentioned purposes. These payments are not compensation payments but ex-gratia payments negotiated outside the civil law system that recognise the tragic plight of thalidomide survivors. This bill also makes minor amendments to income management measures. These measures will assist those on compulsory income management to improve their financial literacy and to encourage savings.

The benefits of this bill are great. They stand to benefit the people in my community who really need them. These investments are a reminder of this government’s commitment to policy delivery and to investing in the future. It is a fantastic endeavour by the minister, on which I congratulate her—and I thank her for her ongoing interest in my electorate of Greenway. It delivers on some very important election promises that will positively affect the full spectrum of people in our community, from our senior citizens to our young families and children. I am very pleased to support this bill.

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