Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very keen to give this speech on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill (No. 2) 2015. I jumped to my feet as soon as I could. Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for calling me. I did not mind waiting a couple of minutes.

It was interesting to sit in here when the member for Hughes was making his contribution to the debate. I felt as if I existed in an alternate universe to him. He talked about the damage that is being done to the future and the only way that you can stop this damage is by harshly attacking people who are the most vulnerable within our society. He gave the speech of a zealot. He failed to recognise in his contribution to the debate that by causing hardship and damage to families he is actually damaging the future prospects of this country. For us to have a secure future we are relying on families being able to afford to bring up their children, ensure they have an education and provide for them. It is those families and children that are the key to the success of our country in the future. Australia relies on them.

I could not help but make a comparison to the former member for Hughes, Danna Vale. I saw her a couple of weeks ago and it was very pleasant to catch up with her. She is a very different type of person. She understands the value of families and the value of communities. Unfortunately, the current member for Hughes just does not get it. Because he does not get it he cannot understand how important it is to support families. He talked about demographics and blamed Labor for the problems that he sees exist now. He did not talk about the fact that the budget deficit has tripled since this government has been in power. He talked about the challenge of cutting spending and said that the only solution is to cut spending—and for him cutting spending means attacking the most vulnerable in our society.

At no time did he highlight the fact that there is a need to crack down on multinational companies. At no time did he talk about the need to close the superannuation loopholes. Rather he had one focus to bring the budget back into balance and that was to attack the most vulnerable people in our country and to attack families, who are taking care of the future generation of Australians.

I spoke earlier today on another piece of social security legislation. That legislation was taking away conditions of pensioners. It looked at pensioners who were going overseas and it reduced their pension. Tonight we are looking at the other end of the spectrum, and that is families. Once again we are looking at taking away from families.

I will go through this legislation because there is quite a bit of detail in it. There is an increase in the standard rate of FTB A of $10 per fortnight for all families receiving more than the base rate. There is the introduction of a new rate of payment for family tax benefit B families with children under the age of one. There is a reduction of family tax benefit B for single parent families with children between the age of 13 and 16. This is a reduction at a time when young people, young students, are actually at their most expensive. It is when they need the most support. You need to ensure that they have the resources they need to learn and the resources they need to prepare themselves for work and for a career. Also there is the abolition of payments for single parent families whose youngest child is aged between 17 and 19 and in full-time secondary school. I will repeat that: single parent families whose youngest child is between 17 and 19 attending full-time secondary school will lose their family tax benefit B payment. That is so short-sighted. This government does not understand that by providing that support to families it is ensuring that those students, those families, can go on to a better, brighter future rather than have to scrape and miss out on things and not be able to get the resources they need for schooling.

What it demonstrates is that those on the other side of this House do not understand what it is like to be on a fixed low to middle income and have to provide support for children attending school. It really saddens me to think that we have members of parliament who are so out of touch with their communities that they cannot understand this simple, basic fact.

It is also, in this legislation, agreed—after much effort from the Labor Party—to maintain the payment to single parents who are, at least, 60 years of age. In other words, the Turnbull-Abbott government was going to rip the family tax benefit away from grandparents. Grandparents do it very hard, and there are many grandparents in Australia who are responsible for looking after and raising their grandchildren. It is a sad fact that this has increased enormously in recent years. I work very closely with a number of grandparent groups within the Shortland electorate and on the Central Coast. During the time that I have been associated with them this government has defunded these groups. Some of them are working voluntarily. I provide whatever support I can, to them, as do other community organisations.

Once again, this demonstrates that members of the government do not understand the basic fact that if you are 60 years of age or over and you are caring for your grandchild the impost is very great. The government does not understand the support that child needs and the support the grandparents need. It was only because of the efforts of the opposition that the government will maintain the current rate of payment. I would, particularly, like to pay credit to the member for Jagajaga. She was very tenacious in arguing in favour of grandparents.

This legislation is phasing out family tax benefit A and B end-of-year supplements over two years. Families relied on that. If there was an overpayment, that supplement was used to adjust the overpayment, and that was the rationale behind it when it was introduced. This government is, once again, getting rid of it. The family tax benefit A supplement will be reduced to $602.25 from July 2016 and $302.95 from July 2017 and will be totally abolished from 2018. The family tax B supplement will also be reduced and finally abolished in 2018.

This package will impact on families in a very draconian way. There will be 140,000 families with children under the age of one who will receive an increase of $1,000. That is, basically, bringing back the baby bonus in a different form. It is the Liberal Party's appeasement of the National Party. Whilst they are giving $1,000 a year to families with children under the age of one, they are ripping money out of families with children over the age of one. I heard the member for Jagajaga point out how some of the poorest families live in National Party electorates. National Party members should be in here arguing for all families of Australia—not just for the baby bonus to be brought back in a different format for 140 families.

There are 136,000 single parents with children aged 13 to 16 who have had their family tax benefit reduced. That reduction works out at about $1,700. Single parents with children aged 16 will suffer a cut of almost $3,100. There will be 1.2 million families who will receive an increase in family tax benefit A but 1.5 million families will lose the family tax benefit A supplement of $726 per child. In other words, they will be much worse off. On the one hand this government makes things look glossy but on the other hand it is taking. Up-front it looks like they are giving, but when you look at the details you find that what they are putting forward as a bonus is, actually, a loss.

This legislation fails the fairness test, a test that every piece of legislation should be based on. Since the draconian budget of 2014, the Abbott and then Turnbull governments have been fiddling around the edges. They really needed to go back to the drawing board and come back with a package that was fair. The latest version is still not good enough and will still create a lot of hurt for a number of families. The fact that 1.5 million families are going to lose their family tax benefit A will have a significant impact. The fact that 1.3 million families will lose their family tax benefit part B supplement will also have a significant impact.

When we look at fairness, we can say that the new Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is no better than the former Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. People embraced him because they thought that there was going to be a kinder, fairer government, one that would actually connect to the community and listen to the issues that were concerning families. Instead, we have just got a smoother version of the former Prime Minister. His agenda is the same. His policies are the same. He is still hurting families. My message to Australians is that the only way that we can bring fairness back into Australia is to get rid of the Liberal government. A Liberal-National Party government—I will not leave the National Party out of this—be it a Turnbull led government or an Abbott led government, is still the same.

When it comes to fairness, they just do not understand. On one hand, as I mentioned earlier, they are refusing to make multinationals pay their fair share of tax. They are refusing to curb the generous tax concessions for wealthy superannuants. Instead of taking money and looking at adjusting the budget in those areas, what this government is doing is targeting ordinary Australians on low and middle incomes. Instead of taking money from those people who are seeking to evade taxation, they are taking it out of the pockets of struggling Australian families. With one piece of legislation they are attacking pensioners. In this legislation we have before us they are attacking families. This government stands condemned for its vendetta against Australian people.

See this speech in context