James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make some brief comments on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Incentivising Pensioners to Downsize) Bill 2022, and I appreciate the opportunity to briefly contribute on this bill. This is another measure that the coalition announced in the election campaign, and, after we had announced this, the now government indicated that they would match it. So here we are, implementing another coalition election commitment.

This does need to be taken within the context of some other important measures which we've also had the chance to legislate recently—in particular, the reduction in the age eligibility for people to put proceeds from the sale of their home into their superannuation. As well as doing things to make it easier for future superannuants to provision for their retirement through the sale of a family home, we should equally be looking for an opportunity, which we have through this legislation, to do something for those that will be on the age pension.

As many speakers have indicated, there are two elements here. We're extending the period of time that the proceeds of the sale of a home will not impact, from an asset point of view, on eligibility for the pension. We're also applying the lower deeming rate to the value of the sale proceeds for that same period of time.

In the last parliament, I served on a parliamentary committee which looked at housing affordability. There are an enormous number of challenges regarding housing affordability, and this by no means is any form of silver bullet. Unfortunately, the most significant challenges are not within the power of the Commonwealth government. The state and local governments have got a lot of work to do there and a lot of things they need to look at, but I won't digress into that report. It's freely available for those interested to look at some of the findings there.

This is an equity measure to give pensioners more of a grace period, so there is less pressure on them around making a decision to sell a family home, probably, and then looking for something more appropriate for the stage of their lives that they are in. It means that they will be able to commit to purchasing a new property without the undue pressure caused by the fear of not being able to do so within a 12-month period, which would result in eligibility issues in regard to their pension. That is self-evident in the extension of time from 12 months to 24 months

Of course, we think it's a good outcome. It's entirely voluntary. We're in no way seeking to force people to make a decision to sell a family home. But, if a family home is not necessary for the stage of life they are in and if we can make it easier for them to voluntarily make that decision, then we of course want to do that. We want to encourage them to do that, because, hopefully, it will provide that little bit of extra supply in the market. We do know that it is particularly challenging for people who are looking for family homes to get into the property market at the moment and buy a home that's suitable for them. They are entering a completely different stage of their life. They're starting a family, and the type of home that's suitable for them could be exactly the type of home that may no longer be suitable for people who have just gone onto the age pension, or are about to go onto it. Potentially, we can marry up the supply and demand a little better through measures like this.

I made similar comments on a previous bill related to superannuation that went through, and I won't repeat myself on this bill. We want this to be voluntary and we want decision-making to still be in the hands of people who have a property that would be eligible under this legislation, as it would under the superannuation legislation. Nonetheless I think this is really sensible policy that is all about choice. It's all about taking away any concern or pressure people might feel if they were considering selling a property but have a hesitation because of the potential risk to their pension. This, I hope, in certain cases will alleviate some of that concern. It will provide ease of decision-making for people selling a property by taking away the anxiety associated with the fear of not being able to purchase another one, by providing a time frame that is more comfortable for them.

With that brief contribution, I commend the bill to the House.

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