Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'll start by echoing some of the sentiments that were made there by the member for Lyons in relation to the importance of carers in our communities and across our country. I know that you, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, as well as I and every member in this place, appreciate the role that carers play within our communities in looking after those who need support. We can only think about trying to calculate the cost of the contribution that they make. If the taxpayer ever had to bear just a fraction of that cost, it would be a very significant cost indeed. So anything we can do to support our carers should of course be strongly supported by every member of this House. That's why, amongst other aspects of it, the coalition will be supporting the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (More Support in the Safety Net) Bill 2024.

I'll just touch on aspects of this bill, and reflect on their importance but also on why this sort of support is required in the current climate. Schedule 1 of the bill amends the Social Security Act, the family assistance act and the Veterans' Entitlements Act to provide additional support to renters by increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance by 10 per cent.

I'm sure, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, that your electorate is no different to mine in that we are facing a rental crisis at the moment. If any people who are listening have been experiencing this themselves and have been to an open home of a rental property within their electorate, they will have seen the line going down the street. Unfortunately those who are lucky enough to secure tenure within a rental are facing escalating costs. Unfortunately that is very much a symptom of the failure over many years—and I'm not pointing the finger exclusively here at the current government but at our state governments as well, who have primary carriage of housing supply in this country—to ensure that we have adequate housing supply to meet the demand.

Of course, we know that this government is bringing in more migrants to this country than we've seen for quite a while. It's absolutely critical that we ensure that we get the broader housing supply piece correct and not just try to deal with the symptoms as opposed to dealing with the underlying source of the problem. But certainly we support the measure to increase rental assistance, given the current shortfall and the general cost-of-living pressure that locals are facing.

I'll share some stories from within my electorate. Out in the Redlands, I've got a number of constituents who've contacted me over the course of recent weeks to share their experiences of dealing with the rental market at the moment. Nancy from Cleveland emailed me to say:

We were previously home owners, however with the increase in property prices in this area have not been able to buy back in—

that is, they were not able to buy back into the market when they sold their property. She says that renting has been one of the most stressful things that they've ever endured in their lives, even more stressful than the increase in the groceries and the utilities that they've been facing recently. She says:

We find ourselves every 6 months waiting nervously to find out if our owners will renew our lease or whether we need to pack up our 5 person family and find somewhere new to live which may be smaller or more expensive or may be in a new area, which adds the stress of potentially having to relocate our kids to new schools and new daycare and kindy. All of this in a market where rentals are more expensive and at an all time shortage.

We have tried to secure longer term leases … but our owners are no longer keen on this as they want to continue to increase the rent as much as they can and keep their options open to increase the rent for new tenants.

We still want to buy back into the Redlands, however we need more time and want to ideally stay in one place until we can afford to buy back in. The stress of uncertainty around our rental is huge for us and our kids.

You can sense the desperation there in those words, and certainly this support will be more than welcome.

Mark from Victoria Point outlined some of the increases that he's been facing in his rent recently. A couple of years ago, he was paying rent of $375 a week. This went up to $600 in one jump, then it went to $640, and now it's up to $680. That's from $375 to $680 within this term of parliament. You can certainly get the sense of why people are hurting out there. Yvonne from Thornlands told me that her rent has gone up $225 a week from just a couple of years ago.

I've got another email here from Christine from Alexandra Hills. She talks about the position that she and her mother are in, in the current rental crisis. She says:

My mother is 83 years old and has mobility issues. She cannot climb stairs, walk comfortably on sloping driveways or climb in/out of a bath …

For over 5 months we have been trying to find somewhere else to live.

We have been couch surfing at a friend's place for these past few months.

I am in a catch 22 position, because I don't earn enough, I can't get a rental. For me to try and get another job will be difficult because I don't have a home.

You can see how this sort of pattern makes it very difficult for an individual like Christine to get ahead, particularly with looking after her mother. That comes to another aspect of the bill that I'll touch on shortly. She makes this very salient comment:

How are honest hard-working citizens in this country supposed to put a roof over our head? Especially when the rentals are rising at ridiculous rates and wages aren't keeping in line.

That's very, very true. That's the experience. I won't read out all the list of emails I've gotten on this topic, but you get the sense that that rental assistance increase will certainly be welcome.

As I mentioned, we've got to deal with the underlying cause here. We can't just put a bandaid on it with an increase in rental assistance, because, of course, that's going to force rental prices up even further. But it is going to assist those who are at the lower end of the spectrum and are absolutely in dire, desperate need at the moment. But we've got to deal with more supply and we've got to tackle that seriously, and I encourage the government to really step up their efforts to try to get more housing supply in this country. Part of that, of course, is getting the states and local governments on board with planning reform and tax reform. In my maiden speech I spoke a bit about the need to really tackle that at a federal level and about putting some money on the table to ensure that we get the sort of uniform reform that we actually need.

Schedule 2 of the bill amends the Social Security Act to extend the higher rate of JobSeeker payment to single recipients who have an assessed partial capacity to work of 10 to 14 hours per week due to physical, intellectual or psychiatric impairment. Despite the barriers to work faced by recipients with a partial capacity to work up to 14 hours per week, this group does not qualify for a higher rate of JobSeeker payment, based on their reduced capacity to work. Recipients with a partial capacity to work up to 14 hours remain on payments for almost twice as long as those without a partial capacity to work and have, on average, only nine per cent of reported earnings each fortnight. This group may also be unable to qualify for the disability support pension, which is, of course, paid at a higher rate. So this is a very welcome measure to try to get that extra support to people, particularly in these difficult times. Currently, I'm advised that the higher rate is $816.90 by per fortnight, which is available to single recipients with dependent children, as well as to single recipients aged 55 or over receiving JobSeeker for nine or more continuous months. According to the government, of those who will benefit from this measure, 36 per cent are women, 34 per cent are in regional and remote areas of Australia and 14 per cent are Indigenous Australians. It's good that that support is heading to some of our more disadvantaged regions and cohorts.

Schedule 3 of the bill is probably the most welcome element of it. The bill amends the Social Security Act and the Administration Act to improve access to paid work for carer payment recipients by increasing flexibility in the circumstances a carer may temporarily cease providing care without losing qualification. This includes changing the 25 hours per week work limit to 100 hours over a four-week settlement period and removing the restriction on education and volunteering activities from the participation limit. The government has indicated that this action is to provide greater flexibility for carer payment recipients, allowing them to restructure their work commitments around their caring role before losing the payment. In a measure that will particularly assist those carers living in regional and remote Australia, travel time, as well as education and volunteering activities, will no longer be counted in the participation limit. I think that's an incredibly welcome move.

We need greater flexibility in this system to allow people who don't necessarily tick all the boxes and fit those very limited criteria to be able to access support. You shouldn't be disadvantaged, particularly if you consider circumstances such as where an individual may be going through quite challenging health problems and may end up having bouts when they're completely out of action and other bouts when they're actually fairly good to work. We should be encouraging people to try to take up that opportunity to work when they've got the opportunity to do so. I think it's a fairer approach. I think that there are going to be many people, and we've heard a lot of stakeholders calling for this for quite a while. It's a positive development that it has been accepted by the government, and we are going to proceed on that basis. Certainly, I've got a lot of constituents in my neck of the woods who've contacted me to try to ensure that we get some sort of averaging. It's not an unrealistic level of averaging. It's the same number of hours; we're just putting it out across a four-week period, as opposed to insisting that certain standards are met each week. That's not how life works, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz. You know as well as anyone that people can be out of action from one week to the next, and things can certainly change, particularly for carers, who do so much within our community. It's, I think, a very welcome measure.

This measure also includes a six-month suspension period for recipients who work over the limit. If circumstances change, they will not need to reapply to access the carer payment and will also retain their pension concession card. Carers, who are predominantly women, will benefit if caring for those with conditions that fluctuate or are episodic.

These measures also provide flexibility in how carers can use the 63 days of respite that they're entitled to. I think that's another important aspect if we've got carers who are able to drop out temporarily and suspend but not have to start again. Unfortunately, sometimes people are coming in and out of caring situations. It may well be a husband and wife sharing caring duties of an elderly parent or a child. It's great that we will have that flexibility. I think it underscores what we're actually trying to achieve through this system.

So I think this bill is certainly going to be a step in the right direction. The coalition will be supporting the bill. We hope that it will have some sort of positive impact. Of course, it's not the be-all and end-all. There are many problems in this nation and in this economy that we need to sort out. However, as a first step towards addressing some of the symptoms of the problems, we welcome this initiative.

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