Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023, and I do so on behalf of my communities in the Gilmore electorate that have a lot of experience with natural disasters. The 2019-22 bushfires saw 72 per cent of the Shoalhaven burnt; 919 houses, facilities and outbuildings destroyed; and a further 455 damaged. There were 27,099 applications approved for the Australian government disaster recovery payment and an additional 10,597 applications for the additional payment for children. Together, these payments total $35.48 million. In Eurobodalla, 81 per cent of land was burnt; 1,472 houses, facilities and outbuildings were destroyed; and a further 603 were damaged. In the Eurobodalla, there were 15,820 applications approved for the disaster recovery payment and an additional 5,018 applications approved for the additional payment for children. Together, these payments total $19.78 million.

No-one can not be impacted by the Black Summer bushfires. Our local rural fire service firefighters and those firefighters who came from near and far are our true heroes, as are the many emergency services and voluntary organisations, like our police, SES, ambulance, fire and rescue, marine rescue, surf life saving clubs, and many local businesses, organisations and individuals that helped. But people needed urgent financial support. When your power goes off, your food rots. When you've lost all your clothes, school items and food, the need for assistance is real.

I advocated quickly for the disaster declaration, which kickstarted the opening of applications for the Australian government disaster recovery payment. The payment, delivered by Service Australia, pays $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child. It's meant to be immediate financial assistance to help overcome some of the financial burdens. My staff and I did everything we could to advertise this payment and to support people with the application process. I thank our Services Australia staff who worked around the clock to support people. But there were definitely some system problems, and people contacted my office for help.

When a constituent contacted me in disbelief that her application had been rejected because her area supposedly wasn't bushfire affected, she asked for help. It was a simple problem that the town name wasn't recognised as part of the Shoalhaven disaster-declared area, something we were able to fix. There were many examples of where people have lived and worked for years and contributed to our communities but, because of the criteria, were ineligible for the disaster recovery payment.

It is upon us all to improve the system for the disaster recovery payment, and this is what this bill will do. This bill seeks to amend the Social Security Act 1991 to introduce additional objective qualification criteria for the Australian government disaster recovery payment to support quicker decision-making. The bill supports faster and more efficient assessment of claims for those who have been adversely impacted by a major disaster. This is achieved by providing objective criteria on which to assess claims for the recovery payment to support increased use of automatic decision-making. The use of automation allows a person to enter their information to claim a payment and a computer will check that information within limitations or business rules. If the information provided does not meet a business rule, it will fall out of the automatic decision-making system and the claim will be assessed manually.

We know that everyone's circumstances are unique. So, if someone does not meet the streamlined automation rules as introduced by the bill, a person's circumstances can be considered manually against a number of discretionary criteria. And if the information provided meets all business rules, a person can receive payment quickly—ideally, within days as opposed to weeks or months. This will be a welcome relief to people right across Gilmore. In the Shoalhaven and Eurobodalla, we went on to have a further 10 disaster declarations since the fires, mainly floods and storms. The Kiama local government area has also had four flood or storm disaster declarations, with 8,970 approved applications for the Australian government disaster recovery payment totalling $10 million.

Natural disasters like bushfires, floods and storms are here to stay. It is imperative that we are prepared as much as possible. It is important we get these changes in place quickly. Services Australia needs to be able to process claims quickly during disaster responses. These changes from this bill will help achieve that.

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