Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The shadow minister has opened the floodgates on what Labor would support in government but will not support in opposition. The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill is important to many people across the spectrum of the Australian community, and I am staggered that the Labor government would introduce such harsh measures in government and then come into this place with some spurious excuse about why they were doing something that we now cannot. This is especially the case with the introduction of interest charges for student debts. The background notes on the bill say it is a saving commitment made by the former government as part of the 2012 MYEFO. It is part of the Labor government's changes. Student start-up loans were also part of the Labor government's changes and were provided for in its budget.

It is remarkable that those opposite have come into the 44th Parliament and they have said that here are the arrangements we had when we were in government but we are completely turning our backs on those arrangements. There are only two items in the whole of this legislation that are not proposals of the previous government, and they are the changes to do with gambling reform—that is important, and I will come to it in a moment—and the way paid parental leave will be administered. They are the only two things in this massive piece of legislation that we are changing. All the rest of the proposals in the bill are Labor government proposals. Now the shadow minister says that they will support half of those, the ones they feel comfortable with.

Those opposite ought to think about all those people who historically have identified with the Labor Party but who in the last election clearly identified with the coalition. The way they treat people is the reason they are not in government today, and we, as a new government, should be reminded that when we effect legislation like this we can change people's lives. We can change them for the better; we can change them for the worse. Legislation can affect their income and affect their daily lives. I am appalled that the previous government would come into this place and say, 'Here is what we were going to do to this group of people when we were in government but, now we are not in government, a conscience has struck us, we feel terrible about it, this was never our intention but we had to do it because we were told to do it, and we have had to change our minds.' Who were they told by? They have no idea, but they have left us in a budget situation that is so difficult that we have to go along with some of these draconian measures until such time as we can get things sorted out.

The shadow minister said that the Labor Party's commitment was that as an opposition they would work through the issues and their approach to problem gambling. Yesterday in the House the member for Denison asked a question. I like the way the member for Denison works, because he has a passion for gambling reform. I accept that. He said:

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, your government wants to overturn the 43rd Parliament's modest poker machine reforms, so I want to know how all the avowed Christians in the government care so little for Australia's 95,000 poker machine problem gamblers and the people they affect—or do they just care a whole lot more about the hundreds of thousands of dollars the coalition has received from the poker machine industry?

I do not know where the second part of his question came from, because I did not receive a cent from the poker machine industry and I do not know of any of my colleagues who did. Mr Wilkie was asked to change the 'avowed Christians' part of his question so as not to reflect on anyone. What has happened in this process? This parliament was in a hung situation where the government of the day relied on a small number of individuals for its very existence. In that heated process the raising of a single issue, gambling reform, the scourge of poker machines in this country, came forth through the member for Denison. I can accept that, in that situation, but I put to the member for Denison that now we have the opportunity to properly address the issues, as the shadow minister indicated. She talked about the social costs of gambling, particularly poker machines, being $5 billion and gambling losses in this country being around $19 billion. I am not a friend of the poker machine. Some 30 years ago I put $20 into a poker machine and I did not get any back, so I have never put any in since. Having said that, we now have the chance, with the Labor Party, to work through the issues.

I say to the member for Denison: do not give up on your dream of changing the way we approach gambling reform. What the government is doing here, with the removal of the previous legislation, is saying, 'We are prepared,' as the Prime Minister said yesterday. Mr Abbott made three statements: firstly, we support voluntary precommitment—that is, machines that you can precommit to—in regard to poker machines; secondly, we support more counselling for problem gamblers; thirdly, we will implement stronger restrictions on online gambling. This government is prepared to now quietly work through the process of how we might address this issue. Having always personally seen this as more of an issue under state administration, I accept that we do not need to be the regulator. But I can understand how the member for Denison wants to champion this issue, and I believe Senator Xenophon also wants to champion this issue. They believe they are here on that issue.

Whilst that is important, as are the other measures in here, we now have a chance to quietly work through the processes to allow for a reasonable response from this parliament in regard to problem gambling, as we do for other social problems that affect the community in general. We, as a parliament, whether we liked it or not, have changed the packaging for cigarettes. We invest a lot of money in trying to reduce the consumption of alcohol across the country. In these steps here we have changed welfare payments in parts of our community to make sure that they are directed at the area where they need to be focused. That has been supported by the shadow minister today. But, as the minister, she implemented those changes. They are addressed in here today, and we continue to fund that trial. Remember, that is a trial in parts of the communities in Australia where we have reforms in place that force people to set aside a certain amount of their welfare payments for the benefit of their families. That is to encourage them, hopefully, to make sure their kids get to school and to make sure they have something to eat. Hopefully, we are moving through a process whereby communities may be changed. I am not saying they will be, and the minister did talk about incremental benefits in regard to this.

This bill is very large. I do not know whether some of the measures in this bill will be effective. I do not know whether an interest charge on student loans is appropriate. I think we should be doing all we can for our students. But, having said that, when you come into government and there are massive constraints on the budget rather than funds available for you to press for your programs, I understand why we will argue in this bill that we cannot step away from the position that the previous Labor government has left us in. Now I say that with all sincerity. I expect that some of the people affected by the changes in these bills would be very disappointed in the previous government for introducing this, and they would have expected us to repeal the legislation that was put in place, if we could choose to. However, we find ourselves in a position where we are unable to do that.

The paid parental leave change really is only to take the burden off small business. Of course, coming out of small business myself—if any of you know my background, and I do not expect you to—I know that the burdens of administration and red tape are thrown around very easily. But the people out in our businesses right across this nation—and they are the greatest employers of people right around Australia—are the ones who are staying up in the wee hours of the night filling in forms and papers, paying their taxes, filling in their BAS statements—which are an absolute pain in the neck—or having someone fill in their BAS statements for them, and paying their taxes. All they want to do is get on with their job. In this regard, we are saying the department can pay that directly. The employer can opt in to be part of paying the paid parental leave scheme; otherwise it will be paid directly by the parliament. I think it is a very, very reasonable change for the government to take responsibility for the actions that it takes that usually put a burden, such as another piece of red tape or another overlay of legislation—whatever that might be—on another business.

We see here the Abbott government taking responsibility for the programs that it administers. It is not asking business to administer them, but directly asking the department—our administration. It is a hobbyhorse of mine that governments in all areas should understand that it costs money to administer this nation, and we should be allocating what is appropriate for the general public to administer and what is appropriate for the government to administer. Democracy costs money. We keep on diminishing the amount of funds that we are prepared to spend on this institution, this parliament and other aspects of government activity. I see it as a very important directional guide for this parliament to say that here is a government that, for the first time, is prepared to take responsibility for the burden that it has placed upon small business, especially, across this country. It is saying to them that it is going to take that administrative burden off small business, it is going to give it to the department, and it is going to pay for that administration. This parliament is going to pay for that administration.

That is a giant step forward, because I do not believe that previous governments—and I am talking about governments, not about the Labor government but about the previous governments in this country—have found it too easy to introduce laws and then place all the administration and responsibility, particularly, and the burden of that responsibility, onto businesses across this country, by the flick of a pen from a bureaucrat who says, 'No, this is how you will do it.' Even with the BAS statements, governments realised the burden they had put on a lot of small business, and they made change after change after change. Because there is so much in this legislation—and there is quite a bit of it; you just heard the shadow minister go through it—I have to have a look at the motives. It seems reasonable that you might say, 'Well, you have lived in this country for 25 years, we are going to move that to 35 years because that fits in with the OECD outline.' But I just wonder who it is in the community that they need to address on these issues. I think there were some underlying reasons, under the previous government, that never came out in the legislation. All of these changes need to be monitored to see whether they work. In regard to the change to the Pension Bonus Scheme, the previous government actually found out it did not work, which was rather interesting. People just took advantage of it; it was a ripper for them. And that is what happened—people looked at that scheme and said, 'Oh, what a beauty: the government will pay me if I continue in work'. And they were going to continue in work anyway. So why do we intervene in these sorts of areas? When people are in their 60s, 70s and 80s, they choose to work or not work. In this country—it is an amazing country—they can actually choose to work or not, which is quite different to what happens in most other countries around the world. These proposed changes are proper changes, they are appropriate changes, but they need to be monitored. Because—as with many of these things—I say to the members of this House: it is not how the very wealthy will deal with it; they are not part of it. It is not even how those in the middle-income brackets will deal with it. A lot of the people who are addressed in this particular piece of legislation are our most vulnerable. If we have any responsibility in this place, it is to those people who are the most vulnerable. (Time expired)

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