Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to follow the member for Parramatta and, previous to her, the member for Calwell in speaking against this proposed legislation, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Budget Repair) Bill 2015. Members on this side have made clear, speech after speech, why this bill should not be supported. If Australian people want to understand the underlying values of the Turnbull government and who the government really represent, they need look no further than the proposed legislation that comes before the parliament and the policies that the Turnbull government are pursuing—policies which, inevitably, prop up the top end of town at the expense of lower income Australians; policies which continue the Abbott government's very first unfair budget, which was indeed rejected by the Australian people and which they brought in to fix the budget blow-out, which, as the member for Parramatta pointed out only moments ago, has now doubled to nearly $38 billion. They want to fix their budget mess on the back of low- and middle-income Australians.

That is what is wrong with this bill and that is what this bill seeks to do. It is unfair, it is discriminatory, it is offensive and, quite frankly, I believe it borders on being racist. This bill seeks to cut $579 million over the next four years in payments to pensioners by cutting the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment, by freezing for three years the income-free areas and means-test thresholds for student payments and also by restricting to six weeks the period that a pensioner may be overseas before their pension is cut. The last measure in particular will affect recipients of the age pension, the wife pension, the widow B pension and the disability support pension. The proposal to limit to six weeks the length of time that a person in receipt of a pension may remain overseas before their pension is cut is particularly unfair because it applies only to those pensioners who have lived in Australia for less than 35 years. It effectively—perhaps not in every single case but effectively—targets overseas-born pensioners. It is discriminatory and it creates a two-class pension system in this country.

The criteria for eligibility for the Australian pension are clear. If the criteria are for some reason flawed or not being properly assessed or are in any way being rorted, that is a legitimate cause for review. However, if a person meets all of the necessary requirements for the aged, disability or widow pension and the pension is then approved, they should not be told how they should spend their pension or how they should live their life. If the argument is that the government wants its pension payments spent here in Australia because it supports the Australian economy, the government should lead by example and ensure that all government procurement is made in Australia, where the products or services can be sourced within Australia and are fit for purpose. Yet the government does not do that, but it expects, I suspect, everyone else and, in particular, pensioners to spend their money here.

The pensioners most likely to be overseas for more than six weeks at a time, as the member for Calwell so well articulated, are those who were born overseas and still have family members living in their country of birth. A typical scenario would be where the Australian pensioner, having migrated to Australia, spent their working life working hard, settling into this country, caring for and raising their family, and not being able to take holidays or go back to their homeland because of other essential responsibilities that they were also committed to. They were not able to go back and see friends and relatives, perhaps parents, they had left when they left their country of birth. They had not seen them for many years and it was always their plan, on retirement, to do that. They planned well ahead on the basis that, on retirement, they could not only go overseas but spend an extended period of time in order to reunite with relatives and friends whom they had not seen for many years—they wanted to spend quality time with them. Because they did have relatives and friends overseas, the trip would be affordable to them because they probably would not have to pay accommodation costs when they visited because they would stay with those relatives. So the pension that they are entitled to would sustain them during the extended period of time that they were there.

Bear in mind that these people are already pensioners themselves and have been out here for 35 years at least; they are themselves in an older age category. If they are fortunate enough to have brothers and sisters, perhaps even parents, still alive in those countries, it is very likely that their relatives are going to be in poor health. Therefore, it may well be that they want to spend an extended period of time with someone who is in a very poor state of health. It is also very likely that this is the once-in-a-lifetime trip that they will make back to their homeland and it is very likely that, after they return to Australia, they may never again see the people they have not seen for years and wish to reunite with. For all of those reasons, it is quite understandable that these are the people who are likely to be going overseas and spending more than six weeks at a time away when they do. Just as importantly, as the member for Calwell pointed out in her remarks, they cannot afford airfares backwards and forwards every six weeks.

It is for those reasons that this proposed legislation, I believe, is totally unfair. To say to someone that, if you go overseas and spend more than six weeks overseas, you may lose part or all of your pension is discriminatory. The government does not control the spending patterns or the life choices of any other pensioner group in this country. In fact there are other people who are on government pensions of one kind or another who are excluded from these conditions, and rightly so. But to say to one particular group, 'You will be included in these conditions', is totally unfair. Even welfare recipients who are placed on income management schemes do not have their total welfare payment cut.

The unfairness of this legislation also applies particularly and specifically to people on a disability pension, for they too may have their disability pension cut if they go overseas. A person with a disability is already very restricted in what they can do with their life because of their disability. Placing further restrictions on them by restricting their travel just to save a few dollars is mean and penny-pinching. The same can be said about the proposal to cut the pensioner education supplement, a supplement of between $31 and $61 a fortnight. This measure, I understand, will see some 41,130 recipients lose their supplements; and I understand that more than three-quarters of those that will lose their supplements are women.

The abolition of the education entry payment will also see about 87,000 people on Newstart, parenting payment, or partner or widow allowance lose the payment of $208 a year. In my view this is short-sightedness in the extreme. The recipients of education entry payments or education supplements are already struggling to make ends meet; that is probably why they are on a pension or support payment of one kind or another. They are doing their best to change their lives and improve their lives; but, instead of encouraging them to do so, the Turnbull government wants to make their life tougher by saying, 'We are going to take away this little bit of support that we were giving you that would perhaps have assisted you to get a better education, which in turn would ultimately lead to you having a better chance of getting back into the workforce and getting off the pension'. That is why I believe it is short-sighted. What it probably will mean is that those people who had some hope of getting back into the workforce will now remain on government assistance for longer periods of time. Nor does it do anything to create any form of encouragement for those people to improve their own lives.

Just as importantly it says a lot about the importance that this government places on education. We know that this government has cut some $30 billion from education and we know that this government's rhetoric is that money does not make any difference to the education outcomes of people. But to see the government also taking away some education support payments from people who in their older years of life were perhaps wanting to get back into the workforce just highlights how this government simply does not understand that lifting education levels in the country lifts productivity for the nation and lifts general opportunities for people who have now got a job and previously did not.

What is just as clear is that this government is obsessed with cutting payments to pensioners in this country. I have spoken on other occasions in this place about the $1.3 billion that was cut from pensioner concession payments to the states. Yes, most of the states picked up the payments in lieu of the federal government, but the cuts came from the federal government. It was a clear decision by them to hit one particular sector of the community. Then they wanted to change the indexation arrangements for pensioners in this country, which would have cost pensioners about $80 a week. They also changed the pension asset test, cutting the pension of 330,000 pensioners around this country in order to save another $2.4 billion. It is their policy to increase the pension age to 70 years of age. Then we had the farce in respect of the Medicare co-payments—'maybe $7, maybe $5'—freezing doctors' MBS payments and on it went.

Every one of those actions was aimed at reducing health expenditure on older people in this country, because they are the ones who would most likely be hit the hardest by those changes. It was just before Christmas that we had the announcement that $650 million would be cut from pathology and diagnostic services in this country. Again, who was going to be hit hard by those changes? People on low and middle incomes, many of whom are the very pensioners we are talking about in this legislation.

The last issue is the one that has been getting considerable commentary in recent weeks, and that is in respect of raising the GST. I notice that the government appears to be backpedalling on that, claiming that they never made any commitments, but it is clear to this side of parliament that it was always their intention to increase the GST, and they may still do so—perhaps after the election; they do not want to talk about it before then because they know that it hits lower and middle income householders the most and they know that it will be opposed by people across the country. They are simply looking to protect their own seats with respect to the next election. But we know it is on their agenda and if they get the opportunity at some stage in the future they will increase the GST. Again who gets hit the hardest when the GST is increased? People on low and middle incomes. The research and statistics bear that out time and time again. It is always the low and middle income people who get hit hardest by the policies of this government. This legislation is just another typical example of that. It hits people who are vulnerable—and all to save a relatively small amount of money. Saving that relatively small amount of money is going to make life so much tougher for people who are already doing it tough.

That is why this side of politics has made it clear that we will not support this legislation. Just as, with the assistance of senators, we have been able to block some of these unfair and unjust moves in the past, I hope that the Senate equally opposes this legislation so that it does not get up and so that people are at least not treated so unfairly and so unjustly by this government.

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