Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to speak on the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation (Further Election Commitments and Other Measures) Bill 2011, which gives effect to some of the commitments the government made during the last federal election. As members of the House will certainly know, we already gave effect to two other significant election commitments in an earlier bill to provide for improved support for families with teenagers to recognise the particular needs of those aged 16 to 19 in secondary school or vocational education.

Notwithstanding the very positive remarks of the previous speaker in this debate, I acknowledge that there have been other speakers in this debate and in previous debates who have reminisced on the contributions of the Howard government to assist families during its period of office. Certainly the measure put in place in the last bill, which gave effect to some of our election commitments relating to families, carried out a substantial piece of unfinished business in the Howard government years, when families saw their benefits drop by over $150 a fortnight, or around $4,000 a year, when their children turned 16.

In previous legislation before the House in this term, we provided for better access to the baby bonus to assist families with the up-front costs of having a new baby, so I am very pleased to speak in this evening's debate relating to family payments and legislation that gives effect to payments to families and carries on the significant initiatives which we put in place both in this term and in our last term.

My electorate spans some of the fastest-growing suburbs of Melbourne, in the south-eastern growth corridor. It is home to very many new families who will certainly stand to benefit from the measures we have already put in place to assist them and certainly from the measures which I hope will be put in place through this bill. These measures will give families more flexibility in the way that they are paid the family tax benefit. The measures strengthen the focus which this government has given to health checks for young children. They are measures which much more accurately assess the income upon which child support payments are based so that children get the financial support that they need and deserve and which ought to be paid for their welfare and upkeep.

The bill also includes measures which were outlined in the 2010-11 budget which will streamline the notification of compensation payments for the purposes of assessing income for Centrelink payments. The first of the measures contemplated in the bill reflects our commitment to better access to family payments through advance payments of the family tax benefit. This will ensure that payments are made much more flexible and will better enable families to meet unexpected costs as they arise. The government certainly believes in a sustainable and targeted family payment system that will continue to support Australian families for many years to come. The effect of the provisions of the bill will mean that from 1 July this year, subject to the legislation being finalised in this place and in the other place, families will benefit from a payment system that gives them much more scope to choose the size and timing of their advance payments. It is a system which we hope will help families meet certain unexpected costs. We certainly appreciate how readily unexpected costs can arise for families and cause tremendous stress for them.

The new system contemplated by the bill will enable families to budget better for their households. For some families we know that the new flexibility could mean avoiding unnecessary and much higher credit card bills than they might be able to afford or high interest personal loans or simply having to forego some important needs. The measures will ensure that families will be able to choose the value of their advance payment between certain minimum and maximum amounts and will enable families to repay those advances through adjustments to their ongoing fortnightly entitlements. The new arrangements will mean that families will no longer be restricted to receiving and repaying advances within two prescribed periods of the year, namely 1 January to 30 June and 1 July to 31 December. Families will be able to request more of their entitlements in advance, at any point in the year, and the advance will be recovered in the following six months.

There are certain safeguards which the bill puts in place. For instance, Centrelink will not approve an advance payment request if it would mean undue financial hardship for the family making the request. Families making repeated requests will be assessed to see whether they might benefit from financial support and counselling. This is a very important means of reaching those who have a need for additional support or are, for a range of reasons, having difficulty managing their finances from month to month. Another significant measure which the bill will implement relates to Healthy Start for School, which was announced during the federal election. I am particularly pleased to be talking about this measure because on the day that that announcement was made the Prime Minister, together with the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, visited my electorate. They visited the suburb of Pakenham and we all had the chance to engage with young mothers and their children, who were having health checks at a local GP clinic. They certainly appreciated the value of those health checks and it was great to see them put in place. This measure will make sure that all children have the opportunity to have those very important health checks at an early stage in their lives. The measure will make the payment of the family tax benefit part A supplement for a child turning four in a particular income year conditional on the child undertaking a health check. This is a measure which will commence on 1 July 2011. The Healthy Start for School measure delivers on a very important election commitment.

A new requirement will also be introduced for income support recipient parents or carers of four-year-olds, which is aimed at giving their children a healthy start for school. The measure will make the family tax benefit part A supplement conditional, for these families, on the children going through a basic health assessment, such as a Healthy Kids Check. It is aimed at ensuring the early detection of particular risk factors and delayed development illnesses, vision and hearing problems. It will ensure that families are given appropriate guidance in relation to healthy lifestyles and early intervention strategies.

We certainly know that evidence shows that such guidance is very important for low-income families. We know that better education and guidance on issues such as these is critical in helping to break down patterns of disadvantage and in ensuring that more Australians are given an opportunity to participate in the economic and social life of our country. Parents will need to confirm with Centrelink that the health check for their particular child has been undertaken. Again, there are safeguards in the bill, and particular provisions which relate to exceptional circumstances, where it is possible for the new requirement to be waived where it is appropriate to do so.

The third measure that the bill will implement is the strengthening of compliance in the child support system. It is another of the government's election commitments and it ensures that the current policy for child support assessments, which uses a default income figure, is updated to reflect, more appropriately, a parent's actual income. At present the child support assessment for a parent in these situations reflects the default of a figure equal to two-thirds of male total average weekly earnings. We know that this default figure very often understates the parent's actual income, with very significant impacts upon the levels of child support which are paid. The new process will generally use the parent's last-known taxable income, indexed by the growth in average wages. But as a default, if the current process—using two-thirds of male total average weekly earnings—would have produced a higher income, that figure will be used instead.

The bill is aimed at implementing a significant range of policy initiatives which provide for flexible payments to families and appropriate and very helpful health checks, which will go to assisting families with the health of their children prior to reaching school age and will ensure that children are afforded appropriate financial support through the child support system.

There are a range of other measures that are included in the bill that are aimed at strengthening our system of welfare payments. They reflect our government's ongoing commitment to improving a system which provides support to families, support to those people in our society who require a safety net and the additional assistance of our government in terms of their finances. I am particularly pleased to be able to support these initiatives which were announced during the federal election and in the 2010-11 budget. I certainly commend the bill to the House.

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