Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

The social services budget contains some 53 measures in the 2015-16 'have a go' budget: 21 savings measures totalling approximately $7.3 billion at the time of the budget, and 32 expenditure measures totalling approximately $6.7 billion. In this portfolio we understand the need to spend the considerable taxpayer funds wisely in an area of critical need, and you need to do that based on some pretty clear principles. Those principles include respect for the taxpayer, respect for the beneficiaries and respect for the communities in which both the taxpayers and the beneficiaries reside.

In regard to taxpayers, we know that the equivalent of eight out of 10 income tax payers go to work every day to ensure that social services expenditure of some $150-plus billion every year can be achieved, and it is important to do this in the most effective way that we can. This is an important expenditure, which is supported by the Australian people. They understand and support the need for a strong welfare safety net in this country, and they are pleased to do it. But they expect of us, both as a government and I believe also as a parliament, to be good stewards of that investment and to ensure that it goes to those who most need it.

We are all very familiar with the growth in expenditure in the social services area, and that growth will continue. One of the challenges for the government, both now and many years into the future, is to manage the growth of that expenditure and ensure that wherever possible we are spending it in places that make the biggest difference. It is a question of realising and understanding the alternatives to how money can be expended in this area, to manage that growth, but it is also about ensuring that we do not just shovel it out the door, but that we focus it in the areas of most need. That is why in this budget there are saving of $7.3 billion. We are redeploying that money, ensuring it is better spent with the expenditure of $6.7 billion on 32 programs. We are spending the funds that the taxpayer is choosing to invest in the welfare safety net better, and we are seeking to respect them in how we go about that process.

The budget is also about respecting the choices of Australians around the country, and trying to facilitate the choices they want to make: families who want to be able to work more; young people who want to be able to work; and young people who understand they have significant barriers to overcome when it comes to being able to work. In this budget we are investing in some $330 million worth programs to help some of the most vulnerable young people in this country, in a whole range of different areas and circumstances, to overcome the barriers they have just to get to the starting line of getting a job, let alone in getting a job, and, in addition to that, being able to keep a job once they have been able to secure one. For families it is about helping them facilitate the decision to work more. The Jobs for Families package, which is central to this budget, is critical to that process.

It is also a budget that is, I think, seeking to lead the country into a new understanding about our welfare system—an understanding that welfare is about need, not about entitlement, and certainly not universal entitlement. An understanding that distinguishes between what the welfare system does and what the tax system does. The tax system wherever possible should be trying to allow Australians to keep as much of their hard earned money as possible and not seeking to tax it and should not have an equivalency between a tax concession and a welfare payment, because they are different things. One involves an Australian keeping the money they have earned, and the other involves meeting a need that an Australian has which has been recognised. The taxpayers are very pleased to support people in that situation.

In the lead-up to this budget we have done an enormous amount of work in seeking to reimagine the welfare system of the future, and that work has been significantly assisted by the review done by Patrick McClure which I think provides a very good road map to a future welfare system that is built on the issue of need and safety nets rather than one that is built on the issue of entitlement.

It is our purpose in this budget to facilitate the choices of Australians, to better spend the welfare dollars that we have available, to ensure that we help those most in need and to ensure that we respect the taxpayer, who was pleased to provide that support.

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