Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I must confess I have a bit of a soft spot for the member for Forde, but that has to be the weirdest speech he has ever made since coming into this place.

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill 2015. The member for Forde has just confirmed that the cuts remain, that the cuts continue. Despite the fact that those opposite pulled most of the egregious stuff out of this legislation and they will do it by amendment, the member for Forde has just confirmed the cuts are not dead, buried and cremated; they are actually there. When MYEFO is handed down in the next few weeks we will see whether the cuts will be in their budget. Of course, they will be, because they have not ruled out bringing legislation back into this chamber containing cuts, making it tougher on families to survive financially.

Today we heard the member for Forde commending the government, saying they are doing a trade-off, with what seems to be a bit of a mythical package on childcare measures. We have not seen it yet. There is a false dichotomy. He is talking about childcare arrangements for teenagers, for 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds. In my electorate of Blair, in South-East Queensland, I do not normally see 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds in childcare facilities at Leichhardt One Mile Community Centre, or at Ipswich Family Day Care in One Mile. It is a false dichotomy, a false trade-off that these people are perpetrating and perpetuating in their allegations.

The member for Forde said, 'We want to give people more choice.' How are they giving them more choice by cutting family payments to make it tougher on them? He says, 'We know that being a parent is tough.' Well, the government wants to make a tougher and harder for families. He talks about a childcare subsidy that they are going to bring in. What additional childcare subsidy is he talking about? I am not aware that they have actually released any measure. We see it all the time, with the Minister for Social Services constantly talking about the childcare package they are bringing in. Well, release it. Show us it. Give us the details about it. How are they going to help families? The legislation before the chamber today is not about helping families.

I remind those opposite and people who may be listening that on 5 November the now Prime Minister went to the Melbourne Institute's Economic and Social Outlook Conference in the Victorian capital. The conference is billed as Australia's premier public policy event, and it certainly attracts some pretty big names. It is a big stage, and the Prime Minister was there to talk up his government's plans. As usual, he used many fine words. I think he used the word 'agility' three times and 'innovation' nine times, saying 'it will encourage us to be innovative'. He cited both the 'culture of agility' and the 'culture of innovation', risking a culture war between his two favourite words. He even slipped in a three-word slogan occasionally, channelling the member for Warringah—'work, save and invest'—just for old time's sake. But when he talked about reform, he talked about fairness. He said:

Fairness is absolutely critical. Any package of reforms which is not and is not seen as fair will not and cannot achieve the public support without which it simply will not succeed.

The legislation before the chamber will not succeed. Why? Because, like the over $8 billion in cuts to families in the 2014 budget, Labor has stood steadfast against cuts which will hurt families. We stood against those cuts in the 2014 budget, we stood against those cuts in the 2015 budget and we stand against the cuts in this legislation before the chamber today.

The only reason the coalition are bringing in amending legislation to temporarily withdraw—we know they are going to bring it back; the member for Forde said so today—the egregious and outrageous aspect of the cuts is that Labor stood firm, with the support of the crossbenchers. In the last two years, we have constantly stood up for families while this government has sacrificed a Prime Minister and a Treasurer on the altar of their attack on families. The former member for North Sydney and the Prime Minister would still be here today, I dare say, but for the attack on pensioners, on grandparents who are looking after their grandchildren and doing noble and wonderful work and on families who are struggling. But this government continues to perpetrate and perpetuate the myth that they have this childcare package—which we have not seen—which will help families.

I note also that the crazy brave member for Forde is the only marginal seat member speaking on this legislation for the government. Why haven't they got a long list of people? They know very well that this legislation is all about an attack on families. Why aren't the members for marginal seats—like Dobell, Robertson, Solomon, Petrie, Capricornia—speaking on this legislation today? They know this legislation is about an attack on families, on family income and on the capacity of families to provide for the cost of school, electricity and fresh food.

This is a government which has a tax conversation about a 15 per cent GST on fresh food and other expenses to make it hard to families. They are going to attack with a potential increased tax, which they talk about all the time. They are the ones who raise the tax conversation, not us. They are the ones who talk about it. Their backbenchers talk about it. Here today, with legislation before the chamber which they will not say they will not reintroduce, they are attacking families.

In my electorate of Blair in South-East Queensland, based on the Ipswich and Somerset region, there are 14,715 recipients of family tax benefit part A. The bill before the chamber would have seen them lose all their family tax benefit annual supplement from 2018—a $726 cut per child. That is 14,715 people in my electorate losing all of their annual supplement—$726 per child. These families in my electorate are part of more than 1.5 million families which will lose their supplement. Around 600,000 of these are single parent families—single parent families who we should be supporting, not punishing. About half a million of these families are on the maximum rate of FTB, meaning their combined family income is less than $51,000 a year. Talk about an attack on the poorest, most vulnerable and most pressured people in our community.

As at June this year there were 13,041 recipients of family tax benefit part B in the Blair electorate. This bill will see them lose all their annual FTB part B supplement from 2018, a cut of $354 per family. There are 13,041 recipients in my electorate. These are some of the 1.3 million nationally who will lose this supplement. Families rely on these annual supplements when they are stretched to meet their budgets, to pay their school costs, to repair their cars and perhaps even to go on a holiday, if they can afford it. The explanatory memorandum in relation to this bill states that abolishing these two supplements will save $4.06 billion over the forward estimates.

This is a government which says it wants to simplify the family tax system. It says social security needs to be simplified and is forever wanting to attack welfare cheats. We are in favour of people who need social security getting it and we are in favour of clamping down on those people who do not need it and do not deserve it, who rip off the system. We are in favour of that. It is unacceptable for people who pay their taxes, who contribute to the economy and the community, to be ripped off, and for the government as well to be ripped off, by people who cheat the system. We are in favour of clamping down on that. But what the government is doing here is making the whole system more complex and more difficult.

Let's talk about the 15- and 16-year-olds who the government thinks are in child care and who there will be trade-offs for. The bill will cease family tax benefit part B payments to 76,000 two-parent families when the youngest child turns 13. It is a cut of more than $3,100 each year for the families. From 2016, 136,000 single-parent families with children aged 13 to 16 will have their family tax benefit part B payments reduced from $1,700 to $1,000. This cut will affect 3,900 grandparent carers of children aged 13 to 16. In 2016, if this bill is passed, these grandparents will also have their support reduced from $1,700 to $1,000. The government will cut family tax benefit part B payments to all single parents with children aged over 16 years, and that is a cut of $3,100. The explanatory memorandum to the bill states that these changes to family tax benefit part B will save $1.35 billion over the forward estimates.

But let's have a look at other aspects of what this government is doing. There is a curious measure in this bill which is full of cuts. There is a new rate of family tax benefit part B payment to families with children under one. This will see 140,000 families with newborns receive $1,000 extra in their family tax benefit payments, at a cost of $380 million to the budget. This is the government that cried that there was a 'debt and deficit disaster' when in opposition, a government which doubled the deficit and increased the debt by over $100 billion. Here they are, saying they can afford another $380 million to the budget. Guess what that was. It was part of an arrangement put in place in less than 24 hours when the current Prime Minister turfed out the then Prime Minister, the member for Warringah. You may recall it was part of a deal he did with the National Party to change the coalition arrangements. He supposedly made the member for New England responsible for water policy, although the shadow minister here, the member for Hunter, has pointed out the oddities of those ministerial arrangements. He was also supposed to be in charge of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

The same deal, according to the National Party—a sop, a pay-off to the National Party—included a commitment from the current Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, to take the coalition's already announced emissions trading targets to the United Nations climate change conference later this year. So he took a whole bunch of stuff that was part of the National Party's commitment and dear to their hearts and coalition policy and said: 'I'm not going to change it. I'll be the same type of Prime Minister as Mr Abbott, the member for Warringah.' So this $380 million is a sop to the National Party. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported on 16 September 2015, one unnamed National Party MP claimed that Prime Minister Turnbull had effectively 'agreed to everything'. It leaves a very bad taste in the mouth—Australians knowing that this $380 million to increase payments to families with newborns is about politics and not about policy at all. It is hypocrisy writ large.

We reject the coalition's reckless urge to spend this $380 million. Again, this demonstrates our commitment, as we have done in the last two years, to sensible savings measures. As the member for Jagajaga has pointed out, there is $2 billion there. We have also supported $20 billion in savings proposed by the government, and in the last week or so we supported another government bill that amended a range of tax laws and other laws, saving $1.4 billion. We have committed ourselves to sensible agreements and sensible arrangements when the government has put them forward. We as an opposition have agreed many times with what the government has done. In my shadow portfolio areas of Indigenous affairs and ageing, there have been many government proposals by way of legislation, guidelines and regulation that we have agreed to. We have disagreed on a number of occasions, but we will commit ourselves to sensible savings and we will stand up for families.

One thing about the Labor Party that has been quite evident in the last two years is that our standing up for families has resulted in the turfing out of a Prime Minister and the eradication of a Treasurer from this chamber with the loss of his job. That and the changes to many ministerial positions have been a result of Labor standing up for families. We know, and in their heart of hearts those opposite know, that this legislation before the chamber is all about an attack on families. They cannot claim they are a party that supports families and family values if their idea of supporting family values is to cut the financial support families need. It is a false statement, and once again it is the Labor Party that is standing up for family values and the economic security of those families, as demonstrated by the values we have shown in the last two years. Those opposite have not stood up for families. They have not stood up for the things that enable families to meet their budgets and the values that they hold dear, and they should hang their heads in shame.

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