Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise and speak on this piece of legislation, the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017. This bill effectively gives effect to two distinct measures that were announced in the 2017 budget. The first is around some of the new arrangements pertaining to No Jab, No Pay and Healthy Start for School. The other component gives effect to the government's response to a 2015 report that was presented to this parliament following an inquiry by the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee. I was Labor's deputy chair during that inquiry. That report was From conflict to cooperation. That was back in 2015. I'm delighted that now, in 2018, three years down the track, we have at least the beginnings of a response to some of the recommendations that were put forward during that very important inquiry into the child support payment system in Australia.

Firstly, in relation to the part of this bill that relates to No Jab, No Pay, I think it's important at the outset to state very clearly that Labor has long supported this approach, and we certainly have no concerns regarding that component of the legislation, as indeed the majority of the recommendations around child support that appear in schedule 1 of the bill here. We do—I will come back to this point in more detail after discussing the No Jab, No Pay component—certainly have concerns, as the shadow minister and the member for Jagajaga earlier articulated. Labor's concerns are around the changes relating to amended tax assessments and potential overpayments. The basis of that concern is that child support recipients who have received those child support payments in completely good faith will have already expended those moneys in caring for their children. It is very likely that there could be an unexpected debt that would arise for those parents, who have received that money in good faith and expended it on the care of their children. That is an issue of concern. As the member for Jagajaga made clear earlier on in this debate, that is an issue that we have taken up directly with both the former minister and the current minister. We're awaiting further advice from the minister on our concerns, so we would reserve our final position there, including whether or not we would seek amendments in the Senate. We are seeking further information on the potential impact of those changes. There are some genuine concerns; we just need to have the government's position clarified there and make sure that those potential impacts are well known so that we are making well-informed decisions on this legislation now.

I turn now to the first component of the bill concerning No Jab, No Pay. As I said, Labor has absolutely no concerns about lending our support to this component of this bill. We certainly believe that every child in Australia deserves the best start in life possible. We support every effort in this place to better strengthen the immunisation rates in Australia. We on this side of the House absolutely back in the science in this regard. We have spoken out very loudly on many occasions when there have been some in this House and, indeed the other, who have been tempted to be critical of the issues around vaccinations and the good they do in our community. We've made it very clear on each and every occasion that, when it comes to vaccinations, we will always back in the science around the need to have high immunisation rates in Australia.

In government, Labor made some important changes to family tax benefits that were designed to increase immunisation rates and, indeed, we went to the 2013 election with some additional amendments. The principles on which the current No Jab, No Pay policy are based have enjoyed bipartisan support in this parliament for many, many years. I think that we should remain very strong advocates. I'm pleased that members opposite have shared the concern around the temptation that some people in the community have to get a bit lax and start questioning the science around vaccinations.

In tightening up of some of the efforts to increase immunisation, the legislation is proposing to withhold an amount of $28 a fortnight from the family tax benefit part A to those families that don't meet the immunisation requirements. That's the fundamental change in this legislation. The reduction in family tax benefits on a regular fortnightly basis would, in fact, replace the current system where you withhold the end-of-year tax supplement. Effectively, the change in this legislation is necessary because the abandonment of the end-of-year supplement has necessitated a change in legislation. It's also necessary, because families earning more than $80,000 a year are no longer eligible to receive that end-of-year supplement. That's really the main point I wish to make here. For those families earning more than $80,000 a year, this amendment is absolutely necessary to ensure that they, too, make sure that their children are well covered and vaccinated as well.

We know that vaccination remains the very best means we have to halt the spread of infectious diseases in Australia and to keep Australians healthy. We have strong immunisation rates here in Australia, which have contributed to the eradication of many infectious diseases over time. Some children's vaccines were introduced in Australia as far back as 1932, and the death rate from vaccine-preventable diseases has fallen from 99 per cent since the introduction of vaccines. There are no qualms on this side of the House on the need to ensure we have high rates of immunisation. We understand the science; we understand the issues around herd immunity. We know that one of the most effective means of ensuring that everybody hears that message from this parliament loud and clear is to make these necessary changes now so that the No Jab, No Pay changes kick in on 1 July. There is no room for complacency on this issue. We on this side of the House are very happy to back it in.

I will just touch finally on some of the matters that came before the committee during the inquiry into the child support program. Indeed, there were 25 recommendations that the committee raised and put to the government. Regrettably, this legislation looks at three of those recommendations. Whilst I certainly welcome the government finally, belatedly, acknowledging some of those required changes, as I said at the beginning, there are some concerns that we still have around some possible unintended consequences of those changes.

The first component that I'd like to look at is part 1 of schedule 1 and the proposed changes to the length of interim care periods. These changes seek to deal with the fact that there can be fundamental discrepancies at times between parents where there is a level of actual care that is going on within some of these families, and then there also some care arrangements in place which may or may not reflect the actual care being given. Disputes about care arrangements are, indeed, rife in the disputes more broadly amongst the child support system, but disputes about care arrangements are generally resolved by family law courts. Until this proposition, the Child Support Agency, for example, has not been able to enforce care arrangements. Certainly the inquiry received lots and lots of evidence around the discrepancies, as I said, between actual care provided and agreed care arrangements.

Having said that, I would just like to put on the record again that the child support system in Australia—which today involves some 1.3 million parents and has a payment system reaching some 1.1 million children in Australia—is a remarkable system in many ways, but we are dealing, very often, in these cases that this legislation is seeking to address, with people who are caught in, sometimes years of, entrenched conflict, and dealing with very complex issues and sometimes trauma and, indeed, very vulnerable families. That's the nature of a lot of family law in Australia. So there is an arrangement that generally runs for this interim period of about 14 weeks, and these proposed changes to the length of interim care periods are an attempt to seek to address the issue that the 14-week period which is currently in place can, in special circumstances, be extended. But that period of time, 14 weeks, is generally not enough time for disputing parents to resolve their differences and, indeed, to get a just and fair outcome. I think anybody who has had experience of the family law system in Australia would understand that. So I think that the recommendations here, in terms of those changes to interim care, are worthwhile.

I would just flag that, currently, there is still an exemption from participating in dispute resolution processes for those people who are experiencing domestic and family violence. I would put on notice here that I believe the government is seeking to change that component. In another, unrelated, inquiry, around family law matters, it has been said that some of the alternative dispute resolution processes would absolutely reach out to people who are victims of family and domestic violence. So I would put us all on alert on that matter.

As I said at the outset, we just have some concerns around whether or not the other changes put up here would have some unintended consequences relating to the generation of a debt in a matter where the receiving parent would have had absolutely no capacity to have known that a debt would have been generated. The receiving parent may have spent that money in good faith and may be financially disadvantaged. We seek some government assurances that would not be the case.

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