Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (More Support in the Safety Net) Bill 2024 makes important changes to increase support payments, as outlined in the budget, to strengthen Australia's social safety net. The boost to Commonwealth rent assistance complements Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts. Every worker in Australia will get a tax cut on 1 July. We heard the good news as well this week that the minimum wage will rise again, faster than inflation, delivering to the lowest paid workers in the country a real wage rise that will flow to many others. Of course, strengthening the social safety net is so important for those Australians relying on social security: pensioners, disability pensioners and others.

In particular, nearly a million households in this country will benefit from the rise in Commonwealth rent assistance. That's a 10 per cent boost to the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance. Since the government was elected, just two years ago, Commonwealth rent assistance has increased by more than 40 per cent. That includes the 15 per cent which took effect last October and another 10 per cent in this budget, which this bill gives effect to. Renters living on social security are some of the most vulnerable in the country, particularly with the increases in rents in many parts of Australia, and this is going to benefit nearly one million households.

The second thing this bill does is to expand eligibility to the higher rate of JobSeeker payment to single people with a partial capacity to work of less than 15 hours. It will boost the rate of JobSeeker payment to the higher rate for those Australians who have been assessed as being able to work for less than 15 hours. Since May 2022 the base single rate of JobSeeker has increased by $120 a fortnight. That's an 18.7 per cent increase in the last two years. It's $3,100 extra a year in the pockets of people surviving on JobSeeker, the largest increase in real terms for over 40 years—that is, an increase in real terms above the rate of inflation of 7.4 per cent. Of course, many people on both sides of the House would like us to continue to do more, to implement further recommendations of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. This budget addresses, I think, around half of their recommendations in one way or another.

The third thing which this bill does is to provide for more flexibility for carer payment recipients to manage their work commitments and balance them with caring responsibilities. That's really important. I see people in my community—and you would in yours, Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou—who have significant caring responsibilities and balance them with part-time work. With part-time work, shift work or casual or flexible work there are times when you can work more and there are times when you can work less. There are times when you have less family support and need to care more, and there are times when you have more. The changes in this bill are sensible. They help people by changing the 25-hour-per-week limit, which has been hard and inflexible, to a more sensible 100 hours over a four-week period. It provides the flexibility for people to work a bit more or a bit less in balancing their caring responsibilities. It will also remove some of the restrictions on study, volunteering and travelling for work, which again have been inflexible and seem really quite unfair situations for many Australians caring for loved ones.

I only had a taste of caring for a loved one in my life. I was not on carers payment, but I cared for my mum when she was dying of cancer over a 10 month period. There are good days and bad days. There are days when you can get to work and days you can't get to work. That was for 10 months.

I have the utmost empathy and respect for people who literally care for loved ones—for their husbands, wives, children or other family members, or sometimes close friends who have no family—for years. I meet them doorknocking. I was out doorknocking in Endeavour Hills for the last few weekends, and I met a number of people who've been stuck at home for years and are trying to balance this with part-time work. This measure will make an enormous difference to those people, making the rules fairer and strengthening our social safety net.

This measure will also—and this is a really important change—extend to the carer's payment a six-month suspension period if you decide you're going to work full-time, because you might have another family member come from overseas or from interstate, who wants to spend time with your loved one for a few weeks. It then enables people to go back to work for a few months and get a bit of money in. The problem with the system at the moment is that when that happens, you're immediately cut off the payment. Then you're forced to re-apply and go through all the rigmarole. Then it might happen again, because another family member might come from interstate and you cut off the payment.

This change is really sensible. It will cut red tape, it will cut the burden on Centrelink and it will provide that fairness and flexibility to people to balance changes in their caring responsibilities with work, by allowing a six-month period where, rather than cancelling the payment, people will be able to just suspend the payment if they're working more for a while, and, importantly they'll still get to keep the concession card.

This is a change that the government rolled out through the employment white paper in the last budget to unemployed Australians to encourage people to take up work without fear, to try full-time jobs, to see if they pass the probation period, without being kicked off Centrelink. They're put on what's called the 'zero rate', the nil rate, and allowed to keep their concession card, removing a big disincentive for people to take work, for unemployed people, and in this case for people with caring responsibilities.

That zero rate and keeping the concession card has long been available to Australians on the disability support pension and it's terrific that we're rolling it out now to strengthen the social safety net and make things a little easier and a little fairer for other Australians with episodic work. It removes a real disincentive to work. You can't overstate the psychological factor for so many Australians of the fear of the loss of their concession card, where they think, 'But if I take this work I'll get some extra money and I want to do that and I can, because I've got the kids covered or I've got the relatives covered, but I'll lose the concession card,' which is worth a lot of money, particularly if you've got relatives or health conditions with all the concessions. So this is a terrific reform and I congratulate the minister on getting government support in the budget for this.

A final couple of things I'll say, just to set the context, these recommendations respond, in part, to the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee's work. Importantly, though, they're being delivered. The cost is a couple of billion dollars over the forward estimates. They're being delivered in a fiscally responsible way. The last two budgets represent an $11.5 billion investment to strengthen the social safety net, but we've still managed as a government to deliver the first two surplus budgets that this country has seen in nearly two decades. Let that sink in. The government has managed to cut tens of billions of dollars of rorts and waste from those opposite. We've been responsible, and banked the extra revenue that's come in—extra tax revenue—instead of spending it like they did like drunken sailors, running up the national debt, nearly a trillion dollars of Liberal debt, with not nearly enough to show for it, and record deficits. We've managed to run two surplus budgets, we've reduced Australia's debt forecasts by over $152 billion from the mess we inherited, and we're managing to strengthen the social safety net.

I say to any Australian listening, and particularly to those opposite, do not accept the brand propaganda that somehow this bunch of clowns are good at managing the budget, because the facts and the records say otherwise. Two surplus budgets. You didn't manage one in 10 years. You got the 'back in black' cups printed, didn't you. You had all the mugs going, but you never delivered a surplus. You spent most of the new revenue, you ran up inflation, you ran up the national debt. Your record is disgraceful. All the time, despite that record, you were cutting welfare from the most vulnerable Australians, including—

You're a good bloke—including so many people who live in your electorate.

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