Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am speaking today on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017. Labor will not support this unfair bill. It contains unfair cuts to the education entry payment, and it contains unfair cuts to the pensioner education supplement. We oppose this bill because it unfairly targets disability support pensioners, carers, single parents and jobseekers who take up study, and it will jeopardise their chances to continue their studies and find employment. Extraordinary really, isn't it, that this government is attacking people who are trying to do their best to improve their education?

This is not the first time that the Liberals and the Nationals have tried to abolish or cut the education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement. Way back in the horror 2014 budget, the Liberals first proposed to axe these payments. They have tried for three years to destroy these payments. Three different ministers—they keep changing the Minister for Social Services, and there is talk around that it might happen again—have tried and failed to get it legislated. These cuts became part of this Liberal government's so-called zombie measures. Eventually, in the 2017 budget, after three years of failure, they gave up on some of the cuts, but not all of them.

In the 2017 budget papers, they listed the cessation of the pensioner education supplement, a cut of $272 million from the budget, as one of the zombie measures that they were removing from the budget. In that same list of zombie measures, in statement 3 of the budget, the cessation of the education entry payment was also listed—or, so it seemed. But, of course, a leopard never changes its spots—particularly this lot. They hadn't given up. The Liberals brought back cuts to these payments, just in a slightly different form.

Based on data obtained at Senate estimates, there are 11,000 people receiving the education entry payment and around 37,000 receiving the pensioner education supplement. Around 9,400 people receive both payments and are at risk of being doubly hit by these unfair cuts. These payments are received predominantly by people with disability, carers, sole parents and the unemployed who have taken up study or training. I can't emphasise that enough: these are people who are trying their best to improve their education. Sixty-two dollars a fortnight might not sound like much to this Prime Minister, but it is, of course, to a single parent who is trying to find room in an already stretched family budget to afford textbooks.

Australians are sick and tired of the relentless cuts made by the Abbott-Turnbull government. They really have had a gutful from what I can only describe as this weak and lazy government—weak because we know this leader has absolutely no authority, and lazy because they keep reproducing the same changes, year in, year out, that are so unfair, target vulnerable Australians and are very poor public policy.

By way of background, the education entry payment is an annual payment of $208 to assist certain social security recipients with the costs of education so that they can eventually re-enter the workforce. Recipients of Newstart, parenting payment single, disability support pension, special benefit carer payment and some other closing payments are eligible to receive the education entry payment if they're studying an approved course.

This bill creates a definition for 'normal amount of full-time study' and links the amount of education entry payment recipients can apply to receive to their study load based on the relevant percentage of full-time study or the amount of pensioner education payment supplement payable to the recipient. This calculation will be made with reference to the amount of full-time study for each individual course. 'Normal amount of full-time study' is defined in the bill as the amount of study that the institution offering the course considers to be full-time, or an amount of full-time study equivalent to the average amount of full-time study that a person would have to undertake for the length of the course in order to complete it in the shortest time possible; or, if the course is a course of study within the meaning of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and there are Commonwealth-supported-place students enrolled in the course, the full-time study load of the course.

The new staggered payment rates in the bill are defined either by the percentage of full-time study being undertaken or by the corresponding amount of pensioner education supplement received. Where a person receives both the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment, they face a cut to both. The current payment of $208 a year will continue for students studying at least 76 per cent of the normal amount of full-time study. The payment would then be reduced to $156, $104 or $52 in line with reduced study loads of 51 per cent, 26 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.

In the 2016-17 financial year, as I say, around 11,700 people received the education entry payment. Of those, 4,805 were recipients of parenting payment single, 2,986 were recipients of disability support pension, 2,762 were recipients of Newstart and 826 were recipients of the carer payment. People on these payments are less likely than other students to be able to undertake studies full-time, as they often have health barriers or caring responsibilities that prevent them from doing so. This is a very important point to make, and one that seems to have escaped the government. These are vulnerable people who are often in difficult circumstances, seeking to improve their skills and improve their job prospects by undertaking some study. This is a very important point to make, and one that seems to have escaped the government. These are vulnerable people, often in difficult circumstances, who are seeking to improve their skills and improve their job prospects by undertaking some study. We hear all the time from those opposite, including the Prime Minister, that it's important to get social security recipients into the workforce, yet here they are cutting help that's designed to do exactly that. They are cutting support to these people who are taking a bit of a risk by doing some study in order to get a job.

It is also important to note that the carer payment and parenting payment are paid overwhelmingly to women. Ninety-four per cent of the parenting payment's single recipients are women. Sixty-nine per cent of carer payment recipients are women. This means these cuts will disproportionately impact women who have started a course of training to get back into the workforce. It is unquestionably unfair.

The pensioner education supplement is a fortnightly payment to some social security recipients to assist with the ongoing costs of study. It was actually introduced back in 1987 by the Hawke Labor government. Currently the pensioner education supplement is paid at the rate of $62.40 a fortnight for a full-time student or $31.20 a fortnight for a part-time student. This bill cuts the pensioner education supplement during non-study periods. This will result in a cut for every recipient of the supplement, as it will no longer be paid in every fortnight of the year. The rate of payment will then be reduced to $46.80, then to $31.20 and then to $15.60 each fortnight in line with reduced study loads of 51 per cent, 26 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. To be clear, again: this is unquestionably a cut.

People with disability have stated—and they've said this about the bill—that these cuts will hurt those on the lowest incomes, including people with disability, who will be further pushed into poverty and financial hardship. It will make it harder for people with disability to start or continue undertaking education. The St Vincent de Paul Society said it is 'cutting payments to those who need them most and reinforcing disparities in access to education.' Based on the latest available data, 37,717 people received the pensioner education supplement and, of these, 16,276 were recipients of parenting payment single. There were 15,430 people who were recipients of the disability support pension, 3,336 people who were recipients of the carer payment and 2,619 people who were recipients of Newstart. The Australian Council of Social Service estimates that 75 per cent of recipients of the pensioner education supplement are women.

The third area that is affected by this bill is the relocation scholarship. This relocation scholarship was introduced in 2010 by the Labor government to help students who need to move away from home for tertiary study with the cost of establishing accommodation. The scholarship was designed specifically to address barriers faced by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly those in regional and remote Australia and Indigenous students. This bill proposes to cease eligibility for the scholarship for students who have both parents living outside Australia, students where their usual place of residence has been outside Australia within six months prior to claiming the scholarship or students who claim the scholarship to undertake study outside of Australia.

In summary, on the one hand the Turnbull government says that they have given up on their unfair cuts; but we know, as this bill shows, that they are just waiting for the next opportunity. They just seem to want to rehash the old, unfair cuts from 2014, giving them a different name. By contrast, Labor stands for fairness. The Liberals and Nationals are all about unfair cuts. The pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment were both introduced to help vulnerable people with the costs of study so that they have the skills that they need to get back into the workforce. Cuts to these vulnerable people are unfair, and the bill should be opposed. Labor will oppose it. I urge the Senate crossbench to reject it as well.

Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand here today to support the previous speaker, the honourable member for Jagajaga. I also stand here to ask: when will it all end? When will the Turnbull government's relentless attacks on low-income Australians end? When will the Turnbull government's attacks on the most vulnerable people in our community end? When will the Turnbull government's attacks on regional, rural and remote Australian communities end? When will the Turnbull government stop attacking hardworking Australians who are just trying to get ahead? This is a government that kicks a person when they are down. Labor will not support these vicious attacks. What all Australians want is simply a fair go. They want a fair go to be able to travel for study should they need to because of where they live and/or the availability of relevant education and training.

This government talks big about the importance of education and how it is funding the best education system for our children, but the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017 certainly does not support that view for our most vulnerable citizens. One of the key aims of the NDIS is to get people with a disability back into the workforce. If someone from the government could tell me how these cuts will help achieve that key aim, I would be truly grateful. A person's credit card should not determine their ability to access educational training at any age. But this is exactly what the Turnbull government is doing by cutting these vital assistance programs.

The pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment were both introduced to help social security recipients meet the additional costs of study, which would enable them to get the skills that they need to get back into the workforce. These payments are received predominantly by people with disability, mental ill health, carers, sole parents and the long-term unemployed who have taken up study or training to better themselves. In the 2016-17 financial year, 11,662 people received education entry payment. Of those, 4,805 were recipients of the parenting payment single, 2,986 were recipients of the disability support pension, 2,762 were recipients of Newstart, and 826 were recipients of the carer payment. Recipients of these payments are far less likely than any other student to be able to undertake full-time study. The majority of recipients often have health barriers or caring responsibilities that prevent full-time study. The majority of these recipients are overwhelmingly the recipients of the parenting payment single, the carer payment and the disability support pension.

Disproportionately, the carer payment and the parenting payment single are paid to women, where inequality in most areas is real. Therefore, there is a high likelihood that the changes in this bill will disproportionately impact on women. Ninety-four per cent of parenting payment single recipients are women, and 69 per cent of carer payment recipients are women. If you are a single parent, a person with a disability or a carer with a 50 per cent study load, you will receive a 50 per cent cut to your payment. I ask the Turnbull government: how is this fair? The restrictions around the definition in this bill are entirely unfair. The reality is this delivers a result where people will receive a 50 per cent cut. Also, there are some people who will be studying part time who will receive a 100 per cent cut.

Then there is the pensioner education supplement cut. Haven't pensioners already been hit hard by this government? Apparently not, because here comes another wave of attacks. The government's relentless attack on pensioners is completely unacceptable, unheard of and simply plain wrong. First, the Turnbull government wants people to work until they're 70. How is that fair for a roof tiler or a plumber or a concreter, for example? Let's not forget the fact that the government is also cutting the energy supplement. With soaring electricity costs, no renewable target or quality plan, how is cutting the energy supplement fair?

On top of that, this government is cutting the pensioner education supplement. The pensioner education supplement is a fortnightly payment for some social security recipients to assist with the ongoing cost of study. Currently, the pensioner education supplement is paid at $62.40 per fortnight for a full-time student or $31.20 per fortnight for a part-time student. This bill cuts the pensioner education supplement during non-study periods. This will result in a cut for every recipient of the supplement, as it will no longer be paid on a fortnightly basis each year. Pensioner education supplement recipients, like recipients of the education entry payment, are less likely than other students to be able to maintain their full-time study load, as I have already said, due to health barriers or caring responsibilities. If your study load is 75 per cent, you will be $15.60 a fortnight worse off. Like with the education entry payment, it is the most vulnerable people, once again, who are affected. In the 2016-17 financial year, 37,717 people received the pensioner education supplement. Of these, 16,276 were recipients of the parenting payment single, 15,430 were recipients of the disability support pension, 3,336 were recipients of the carer payment and 2,619 were recipients of Newstart.

The Australian Council of Social Service estimates that 75 per cent of recipients of the pensioner education supplement are women. Women are already experiencing inequality relating to wages and superannuation, just to mention two areas. Women will receive the brunt of these harsh Turnbull government cuts. The changes in this bill will disproportionately impact women who have started a course or training to get back into the workforce. With little to no representation of women in the Turnbull government cabinet, of course the interests of women have been overlooked, and it is blatantly obvious.

There are also around 9,400 people who currently receive both payments and are at risk of being doubly hit by these unfair cuts. This government has been trying to abolish the education entry supplement and the pensioner education supplement since 2014. Labor has been fighting to maintain these payments for income support recipients who are trying to achieve an education that will give them a better opportunity at a contributing life and some financial security from a job.

The LNP are relentless in their attacks on our most vulnerable citizens. This is typical of the Turnbull government, which is either constantly underestimating the true cost of living for everyday Australians or they simply don't care. $62 per fortnight may not sound like much to this government, but it is to a single parent who is trying to find room in an already stretched family budget to afford textbooks. Let's revisit the cuts the Turnbull government has made to working families, single parents and pensioners: energy supplement, gone; family tax benefit, frozen; penalty rates, cut; pensioner education supplement, cut; and education entry payment, cut. In fact, the only two things that the Turnbull government has decided to increase are the working age—to 70—and a huge tax break for big business, which equals $65 billion. We know that the cuts to workers and families won't stop there, because you can't trust this government to look after anyone other than big business.

What is even more outrageous is that the Turnbull government wants to get people off the social security system but at the same time will make the cuts to the very programs that assist people to get an education and to get ready for employment. This is just shameful. If the Turnbull government really cared about helping income-support recipients find work, they would stop trying to make it harder for them to just get through the day. Malcolm Turnbull says one thing and does another. Labor will always stand up for fairness. The Turnbull government want to make low- and middle-income Australians pay more so that their wealthy mates can pay less tax. They talk about a fair go, but that is not a fair go. It is not fair that big business gets a huge tax cut and a single parent gets a $62 cut to their education payment—a payment that assists them in getting employment and a better life for their family. It is not fair to also cut the energy supplement at the same time.

Pensioners, families and working Australians pay their fair share of tax and it is about time that big business did as well. The lowest income earners should not prop up the wealthiest. Until Chevron and Google start paying tax, they shouldn't receive any benefits from our taxpayer dollars. The benefits should go to the people who need them the most, and they are certainly not big business. Australians have had enough of the Turnbull government and their attacks on our most vulnerable citizens. You can only kick people when they are down for so long and then they will revolt. People will fight back. There will be a national revolt against this government, and, with 21 bad polls in a row, it appears that people are now making their point very clear as to where their vote will go at the next federal election.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to oppose the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017. This bill gives effect to two measures contained in the 2017-18 budget: 'better targeting of the relocation scholarship', and 'aligning the pensioner education supplement and education entry payment'. Currently, recipients of Youth Allowance and Abstudy payments are eligible to receive the relocation scholarship if they are moving to or from a regional or remote area to undertake study. Schedule 1 of this bill tightens eligibility for the relocation scholarship to students who are studying in Australia or whose family or usual place of residence is in Australia. Labor could potentially support this measure if it were separated from the other measures in the bill. The education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement are relatively small payments made to people with a disability, carers, single parents and jobseekers who take up study with the aim of improving their employment prospects and ability to support themselves.

The education entry payment is an annual payment of $208 to assist certain social security recipients with the costs of education so that they can eventually re-enter the workforce—upskill and participate. Recipients of Newstart, parenting payment single, disability support pension, special benefit carer payment and some closing payment recipients are eligible to receive the education entry payment if they are studying an approved course. It's particularly relevant that we're discussing this in a week that is both Anti-Poverty Week and Carers Week, given that both are affected by this piece of legislation.

The pensioner education supplement is a fortnightly payment to some social security recipients to assist with their ongoing costs of study. Currently, the pensioner education supplement is paid at $62.40 per fortnight for a full-time student and $31.20 per fortnight for a part-time student. Every fortnight, the recipient receives a payment from Centrelink. Schedules 2 and 3 of the bill remove eligibility for the education entry payment from recipients who undertake less than 25 per cent of the full-time study load, and progressively cut the amount payable under both payments for those undertaking between 26 per cent and 75 per cent of the full-time study load. The bill introduces a new schedule of payments for part-time study, resulting in some recipients being at least $15.60 a fortnight worse off. It also cuts the pensioner education supplement during long study periods, resulting in a cut for every recipient of the supplement. In pockets of my community where households are living on $600 a week and rental costs are now nudging $400-plus these changes are significant. They make a really big impact on people's budget and on their means for being able to actively participate.

These two measures are yet another example of this government slashing support to low-income and vulnerable Australians. This government continually says it is important to get social security recipients into the workforce. Only yesterday, while debating a matter of public importance, the member for Mitchell said this. Then we find ourselves considering a bill that cuts assistance to social security recipients who are studying so that they have the necessary skills to enter or re-enter the workforce. Actions speak louder than words. Over 11,000 people receive the education entry payment and almost 38,000 receive the pensioner education supplement. The overwhelming majority of people receiving these payments are parenting payment recipients, carer payment recipients and disability support pensioners.

In my previous role to this one, I was a pharmacist in a mental health unit in a public hospital. One of the things that people would commonly set as a goal, as part of getting well and staying well, was to pick up some study that they hadn't been able to finish, maybe go back to the trade that they had been doing, or perhaps go back to TAFE and finish that certificate they hadn't been able to finish. Because of their circumstances, these people were commonly recipients of disability support pensions. The changes being made in this area are significant to people in those situations. Part of getting well and staying well is being able to sit in a classroom again—just doing things that many of us are able to do but that they've been excluded from doing or that they haven't been able to actively participate in. This is really central to somebody being able to get well and stay well and actively participate. The overwhelming majority of people receiving these payments are vulnerable people. The recipients of these payments are less likely than other students to be able to undertake full-time study, as I've discussed, because of health issues that they may experience or because of caring commitments they may have in supporting friends or family members.

The changes in this bill are likely to disproportionately impact women who have started a course of training to get back into the workforce. Over 90 per cent of parenting payment single recipients are women, and nearly 70 per cent of carer payment recipients are women. It's disappointing that the government no longer produces a women's budget to keep Australians informed of the impact of this type of measure on Australian women. From looking at comparable countries, we know that Australia has one of the most segregated workforces. We know that this is largely gender segregation. We've discussed, only this week, some quite prominent women and the real discrimination and gender inequality that still exists. These types of measures will only continue to perpetuate things that we should be redressing.

The Abbott-Turnbull government has been trying to abolish the education entry supplement and the pension education supplement since 2014. For three years, we've been fighting to maintain these payments for income support recipients trying to make themselves work-ready. But this government is relentless in its attacks on the most vulnerable. So, having failed to abolish them altogether, they're now cutting them from those who are not in a position to undertake full-time study: people with a disability, single parents, carers finding it hard to study full-time. I recently met a young woman who was enrolled in training to be a teacher. After her mum, who worked as a cleaner, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she found herself in a situation where she had to withdraw from study. These are the types of people who will be most impacted by these measures—people who are really struggling, who are really vulnerable. Sixty-two dollars a fortnight might not sound a lot to some people, but it is to a single parent who is trying, in an already stretched family budget, to find the means to afford textbooks, travel costs and childcare to enable them to study.

We can also look at this in the context of the proposed changes to enabling education, through Next Step and Open Foundation, where someone may be charged up to $3,200 for a university preparation course for people who otherwise wouldn't have the entry requirements. All of these things stacked up together just put another hurdle, another obstacle, in someone's path. I was recently talking to a friend of mine, Sam, who is now a speech pathologist and whose sister is training to be a teacher. She said she really noticed the impact on her sons of seeing her as a student. They could see that their mother was doing this and that it was something that they may be able to do—something that otherwise would have been out of their reach.

If the Prime Minister really cared about helping income support recipients find work, he would stop trying to make it harder for them just to get through the day or the next step. The pain doesn't stop there. A single mum working one shift a week has just had her family tax benefit rate frozen, and she's probably just lost her penalty rates. This has affected a mum that I met with. She had a young daughter and she was working evenings, because that was the time that her mum was able to look after her daughter, which meant that she had the ability to work which she otherwise wouldn't have.

The Liberals say that they have given up on their unfair cuts, but we know they're just waiting for the next opportunity—and here it is. Cuts to the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment are just part of a whole raft of government cuts to education, cuts to universities, higher student fees and harsher repayment requirements for student loans—you'd almost think that the Prime Minister doesn't want disadvantaged Australians to be able to access education to improve their circumstances, because he's saying one thing and doing another. He says it's important to get social security recipients into the workforce, yet he's cutting assistance which is designed to do exactly that.

Labor will always stand up for fairness. Labor will always stand up for education. The Liberals want to make low- and middle-income Australians pay more so their wealthy mates can pay less. It's just not fair. These measures particularly affect vulnerable people in regional areas. These measures are expected to save the government $96 million over five years. That might sound like a big number, but it's less than the cost of the same-sex marriage survey, and it's a very small number compared to the annual cost of negative gearing and the capital gains tax concessions.

As a mental health worker and a pharmacist and someone who has worked with vulnerable people for most of my life, I have spent a lot of time working with social workers who are struggling to help people find a place to live and acquire the skills that they need to participate in the workforce and look after their families. I find it really distressing that these cuts are cruelly targeted at some of the most vulnerable people in our community—people that I've spent my life working with and caring for. The strain on them and their families, particularly young carers, is something that's not often recognised: the caring role that young people have and find themselves in in families. Young carers are ones who are likely to be particularly affected by these changes.

As I said, these measures are expected to save the government about $96 million over five years, which really, in terms of the government's budget, says a lot about its priorities. Governments set the priorities and budgets are about that. This government, over and over again, is targeting the most vulnerable people and the most disadvantaged pockets of our community—and it is doing it in a really callous way. But I can tell you a big number: $62 a fortnight is a big number to someone on an income of around $450 or $500 a week trying to meet the cost of study to better themselves, to improve their family's circumstances and to boost their chance of getting a job in what is a really competitive job market. In communities like mine, youth unemployment sits stubbornly high. The latest figures show it at 17.3 per cent, in a community where one in two adults have had the opportunity to have a post-school education.

The government talks about choice, but choice is a privilege. In this situation, we're taking from people who don't have the privilege of choice and who haven't had these opportunities that those on the other side may have enjoyed. The Liberals should stop expecting the lowest-income Australians, the most vulnerable people, those living in disadvantaged communities, to subsidise the wealthiest and the most affluent in our community. They should stop putting barriers in the way of carers, people with a disability and single parents who are using their initiative and using the education system to fight their way to a better life.

Michelle, in my electorate, is a nurse. This year she was recognised as the Wyong Hospital Nurse of the Year. She was someone who went through the Open Foundation pathway. Our community would be so much worse off if we didn't have people like Michelle, working as a nurse in Wyong Hospital, or people like my friend Renee, who is in a similar situation. On this side we all know someone who has had the benefit of this and whose families have changed because of this. It can transform lives. The government must stop putting barriers in the way of carers, of people with disability and of single parents who are trying to access the education system, which has been stacked against them, to find a way to a better life.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise on this side of the House and follow the member for Dobell and other colleagues. Once again we on this side of the chamber find ourselves standing, speaker after speaker, representative after representative, to defend the most vulnerable and defend the principle of the fair go in this country. We believe that Australians should be given every opportunity to be educated, to make a contribution, to join the workforce and to live a life of paid work, of dignity. On this side of the chamber we are again defending those positions. It's important to note that, upstairs in the Federation Chamber, speaker after speaker from this side of the chamber are talking about a $65 billion tax cut for the top end of town. It's important that people in my electorate understand that, in Canberra, on this side of the chamber, we are here on our feet defending them. We are upstairs on our feet trying to stop the largesse to the big end of town, while others of us are here protecting the most vulnerable in our communities and protecting their rights to educate themselves and to become part of the working part of society.

If this legislation in front of us passes this House and the other place, it will be another example of the compounding cuts and measures taken by this government in budgetary processes to determine that people who may not have had the best start, may not have finished their education, or whose lives may have been interrupted by any number of things—having a family, caring for parents who are sick or vulnerable—should have their opportunities reduced once more. We have been in this battle now since 2014. I am reminded of a conversation with a single mother in Little River. The member for Kingston, who is in the chamber today, was there and will remember this well, when we were talking about the cuts to Little River Primary School's out-of-school-hours care. That day we met a young mum, engaged in tertiary education, who beautifully explained that, wherever she turned, her chances of finishing her education—so that she could get full-time employment, break the cycle and ensure her children saw her in full-time work—were being slashed by this government.

Here we are again with a further cut that means that this government has gone out to find themselves a few pennies. Upstairs we're looking at a $65 billion tax cut for the top end of town; down here we're talking about a $68 potential cut to some of our most vulnerable who are trying to undertake study. I'm reminded also of the young carers that we met this year. The minister responsible for this piece of legislation, the member for Pearce, is in the chamber now. He was in that meeting that day, where we met young carers caring for parents—some from my electorate—who were talking to us about how difficult it was for them to continue their education while they undertook those caring responsibilities. We heard about scholarships and bursaries that some of those young carers were fortunate enough to receive to assist them to study, but the young person from my electorate was not a recipient of a bursary. Her opportunity to engage in and finish her TAFE course was reliant upon the exact measures that this piece of legislation would now limit.

Let us put it this way: as an example, say a young person who is a full-time carer for a parent who is disabled and unable to care for themselves is engaging in education in a part-time capacity. That person would now have the assistance that had been given to them by the government, to overcome the hurdles put in front of them, reduced by this piece of legislation. It is an indictment of this government that it brings this legislation into this place on the same day it is seeking $65 billion worth of tax cuts for the big end of town—an absolute shame. Again, who are the recipients here? Who are those who receive both of the measures I am most concerned about—the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment? The education entry payment is $208 a year for those studying full-time. When I talk to people they tell me it is already incredibly difficult, that it's only for approved courses and that the hurdles you have to jump in the application process result in discrepancies. There are 37,000 people who receive the pensioner education supplement and only 11,000 people who get the education entry payment. It's already difficult, as reflected in those numbers. Why would you want to make it more difficult? Why would you want to exclude people from getting that $208?

There is also this paring back, saying, 'If you're not studying full-time, you're going to get less support.' We're talking about people in my community who may be travelling and trying to put petrol in a car to engage in study and who take that cost out of the single parent support payment, the disability support pension, the carer payment or Newstart. So we've got a structure here that supports people to engage in education, and those opposite are determined to tear it down.

In every sense, it's another attack on education in this country. It's another attack on people who are trying to lift themselves up, when those opposite claim that that's what they're all about—that they're all about freedom, they're all about the individual, they're all about people being able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and climb the ladder of opportunity. Yet here they are, in this chamber today, acting to undercut that and put more hurdles in front of those same people. We know from the figures that—surprise, surprise!—94 per cent of recipients of parenting payments and 69 per cent of recipients of carer payments are women. And we know that withdrawing support from women is going to see women less likely to continue in their education and less likely to join the workforce full-time.

The government talks, and newspaper articles are released. The member for Pearce and others on that side release data on different communities, trying to stigmatise them about the levels of welfare being paid to them. They release this data all the time. Well, they need to understand that when you undercut people's ability to climb that ladder of opportunity, when you undercut their ability to engage in meaningful education, you're going to create a larger cost somewhere else. It doesn't even make economic sense to put things in place that will reduce the chances for women in electorates like mine to engage in education and to find themselves full-time, meaningful work so they can raise their family with less support from government. This is about opportunity, and it's about the rug of opportunity being pulled out from under people in communities like mine. Labor will always—always—work to ensure that everyone can access what they require to ensure that they can have a meaningful life and find employment. But this is a government that talks about jobs and growth yet is tearing down people's capacity to get those jobs. It is extraordinary to be in this chamber today and have these measures before us. It really is about penny-pinching. We are not talking about an extraordinary amount of money here. It is not going to save the budget an enormous amount of money. But it is going to cost the people who are currently being supported to study; it is going to cost them.

The fear for me and my community is that, there will be young people, there will be people in their 30s and there will be people on a disability support pension who will disengage from education as a result of this piece of legislation. Never forget that the education entry payment and the pension education supplement are most commonly paid to recipients of the parenting payment, 94 per cent of whom are women. As someone who worked in education for many years, I was aware of circumstances where young girls became parents and perhaps were at home under the parenting support payment, isolated with a young child and not necessarily engaging in education.

As an educator in the schools I worked in, we made sure we reached out to those young people and got them back working and trying to engage in their education. That's what it's supposed to be about. This piece of legislation will limit their capacity to engage in education. How anyone with an ounce of common sense could think that this is sensible is beyond my understanding. I would think that this government would want to do everything in its power to support those young women to ensure that they continue their education as they raise their small child and to ensure that, when that child went to school and when that child reached the age where government support could be withdrawn from them, they have skills and training that will be readying them to join the workforce full time.

Some of that study is obviously going to be part time. Obviously, it's going to be part time. The thought that everybody who studies needs to be doing it in a full-time capacity is extraordinary, particularly under these circumstances. There are people on the disability support pension, and people who have limited capacities in their life due to health issues. In my community, most understand the level of incapacity required for people to access the disability support pension. The thought that unless they are studying full time they're going to have support withdrawn from them is extraordinary. If someone is on the disability support pension, they have an incapacity. If they are, in those circumstances, engaging in education, that is something that this country should be celebrating and something that those opposite should be celebrating. It's about getting prepared. It's about leaving the door open for a potential return to work. It's about ensuring that their lives are meaningful and that they are engaged, outside their own homes, with the rest of the community. It makes not just economic sense for these supports to be in place but also social sense for these supports to be in place.

I will remind the House that we're here in this chamber acting to support the most vulnerable in our communities and their right to support to ensure that they can stay engaged in education to maximise their capacity to build skills so that they can get full-time employment. While we're here defending that, we're also upstairs presenting a case against a $65 billion tax cut. The contrast couldn't be clearer between what this side of the House care about and what those opposite see as this country's future. To put it simply, we are talking about withdrawing support from people who are actively engaged in accessing education to better their circumstances. We are talking about withdrawing that support so that we can give tax cuts to the top end of town and so that this government can entrench the inequality that we have been confronted with. In a time where inequity is at a 70-year high, we're here quibbling over withdrawing the support that would see many people in my electorate lose their connection to education and perhaps lose hope in their future.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017 and to strongly support the amendments moved by the member for Jagajaga. I thank the member for Lalor for her contribution to this debate. Like the member for Lalor, I absolutely condemn the Abbott-Turnbull government for their persistent attacks on vulnerable Australians. It is disgraceful and, dare I say it, un-Australian.

By way of background, let's look at the real people this government has in its firing line. The payments the Turnbull government is proposing to cut are predominantly received by people with a disability; by carers—I mention that in National Carers Week; by single parents or jobseekers; and by people who have taken up study or training to ensure they have the skills they need to secure long-term employment in a very competitive workplace. You often hear the government hyperventilating at the dispatch box about breaking the cycle of welfare dependency. I agree that that is a good thing—Labor always agrees that a job is the best thing to give to somebody. I mention the member for Lilley, who has been talking about this for a long time in both books and his policies as Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister. We saw that in Prime Ministers Gillard, Rudd, Keating and Hawke—they always focused on giving jobs to the greatest number of Australians while recognising the reality of the Australian workplace. So I can tell the government something for free: slashing the payments of Australians undertaking study or training to achieve workplace readiness is not how you break the cycle of welfare dependency; in fact, it only entrenches the dependency. These changes will do exactly the opposite of what the Turnbull government purports to achieve. Your credit card should never determine your ability to get a better education. Labor knows this and will always stand up for you. Labor will always stand up for fairness.

One of the payments this bill seeks to change is the education entry payment, the EEP. This is an annual payment of $208 to assist certain social security recipients with their education costs so they can eventually re-enter the workforce. Recipients of Newstart, parenting payment single, the disability support pension and the carer payment are currently eligible to receive the EEP if they are studying an approved course. In the 2016-17 financial year, 11,662 people received the education entry payment. Of those, 4,805 were recipients of parenting payment single, 2,986 were recipients of the disability support pension, 2,762 were recipients of Newstart and 826 were recipients of the carer payment. The bill introduces the definition of a normal amount of full-time study but completely ignores that recipients of this payment are less likely than other students to be able to undertake studies full time, as they often have health barriers or caring responsibilities that prevent them from so doing. The overwhelming majority of recipients are single parents or recipients of the carer payment or DSP. Disproportionately, the carer payment and parenting payment single are paid to women. This bill will disproportionately disadvantage women, as 94 per cent of parenting payment single recipients and 69 per cent of carer payment recipients are women. I cannot support this.

This bill also seeks to change the pensioner education supplement, which is a fortnightly payment to assist with the ongoing costs of study. Currently the pensioner education supplement is paid at $62.40 per fortnight for a full-time student or $31.20 per fortnight for a part-time student.

It's clear that Prime Minister Turnbull doesn't understand real cost-of-living pressures. I would suggest, sadly, that he never has and never will. He tells the old battler millionaire story about the childhood in which, we're supposed to believe, he came up as some sort of battler, forgetting the fact that he had a privileged upbringing and nothing but a positive experience in childhood and was given every opportunity.

This bill caps the PES during non-study periods. This will result in a cut for every recipient of the supplement, as it will no longer be paid in every fortnight of the year. PES recipients, like recipients of the EEP, are less likely than other students to be able to maintain a full-time study load, due to health barriers or caring responsibilities. Where a person receives both the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment, they face a cut to both. In the 2016-17 financial year, 37,717 people received the pensioner education supplement. Of these, 16,276 were recipients of parenting payment single, 15,430 were recipients of the disability support pension, 3,336 were recipients of the carer payment, and 2,619 were recipients of Newstart. ACOSS, the Australian Council of Social Service, estimates 75 per cent of recipients of the pensioner education supplement are—you guessed it—women.

The final payment this bill seeks to change is the relocation scholarship payment. This was a payment designed by Labor in 2010 to address the barriers faced by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly Indigenous students and those coming from regional and remote Australia. I wonder where the National Party are when it comes to standing up for kids from the bush? Yet again, the National Party has gone missing—missing in regional and remote Australia.

This government cannot unite their own party on policy but they can unite one specific group in the community, the experts. Nearly every piece of policy they bring into this House is against the united advice of experts. I have heard them recently talk about expert advice. I wish they would listen to experts when it comes to social policy. This piece of legislation, yet again, is no different—they're ignoring the experts. ACOSS has opposed the bill. In relation to the relocation scholarship payment, they say:

… social security payments should be paid on the basis of financial need and not guided by arbitrary conditions. This cut does not stand up to that test.

The National Social Security Rights Network is opposed to each of the measures in the bill. In relation to the relocation scholarship eligibility changes, they say:

Relocation Scholarships should be available to all low-income students who move away from home to study regardless of the location of the family home or where the student chooses to study. This is consistent with the original intention of the payment and provides support on an equitable basis. The scholarship should respond to the need of support to the costs of moving away from home without additional restrictions.

There are other groups in the community who would be impacted by these cuts—groups that already live with hardship on a day-to-day basis. These cuts may make it so difficult for them that they can no longer study, although study is always going to be the way to move off welfare. One of these groups comprises the unsung heroes of our community, our carers. Some carers take on study whilst caring for someone in their life. That allows them to return to the workforce when they are no longer needed in a caring role. Carers Australia opposes the changes to the PES and EEP. They say:

Reducing the amount of EEP and PES payments based on small changes in course loads, and suspending payments during semester breaks and holiday periods, as proposed in the Bill, will adversely affect the capacity of carers to continue their studies.

Another group who will be substantially affected by these cuts, sadly, are people with disability. People with Disability Australia, also an expert group, are opposed to the changes to the PES and the EEP. They say:

If the Bill is passed those on the lowest incomes, including people with disability, will be further pushed into poverty and financial hardship. It will make it harder for people with disability to start or to continue undertaking education. Plans to cut these payments are counter to the Government's focus on increasing employment opportunities through education. Whilst expectations for pensioners to undertake education increase, the very means of supporting access to education for pensioners are being cut.

As the deputy chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights—I see the chair of the committee is here in the chamber—I have scrutinised this bill from a human rights perspective. The committee raised concerns about the cuts to the relocation scholarship. The committee report stated:

… ‘simplifying’ and ‘streamlining’ do not constitute legitimate objectives for the purposes of international human rights law and do not acknowledge the extent of the payment reduction. Rather, a legitimate objective must address a pressing or substantial concern, and not simply seek an outcome regarded as desirable or convenient.

This out-of-touch Turnbull government consistently puts before this House policy which disproportionately and adversely affects the most vulnerable in our society, at the same time as it's rolling out a tax cut for the top end of town. The harbourside mansion focus of this government is disgusting. This legislation falls again within those parameters. What is most disappointing and difficult to reconcile with good policy is that these cuts will stop young Australians, Australians who are carers and Australians who suffer a disability from further educating themselves. It will stop them from being able to enter or return to the workforce. This is bad policy. It is policy without a soul. I do not support this bill. I do not support this legislation. No intelligent, caring politician could.

Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the member for Moreton, I too for a number of reasons will not support the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017. Firstly, this bill targets women—75 per cent of those people receiving the benefits that this government seeks to cut will be women. I can understand that the government might not understand that. They don't have a very long list of speakers, or in fact anyone in here, to defend it because they probably don't understand what it's like to be a woman. They don't have a high representation of women. But 75 per cent of the people affected by this are going to be women.

Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, is at it again. What does he have against battlers? That should be the question we are all in here talking about. What does he have against people who are trying to study and are already doing it tough? This is a fundamentally unfair bill. As the shadow minister, Jenny Macklin, has already told this House, we will absolutely not support it. This bill contains changes to the eligibility requirement of the relocation scholarship, the education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement. As the member for Moreton asked: where are the Nationals on this? Why aren't they in here? The bill cuts the requirements of eligibility for the relocation scholarship, which will mostly affect kids from the bush.

We have been fighting to maintain all of the payments that will be cut by this bill. Those students are struggling enough as it is. They are income support recipients making themselves ready for work. If Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister of this country, actually cared about helping income support recipients find work instead of demonising them on the front pages of the tabloids, he would stop trying to make it harder for them to just get through their day. The Liberals are relentless in their actions and their attacks on vulnerable people, and this bill shows the Prime Minister yet again trying to slash support to low-income Australians. This is very, very typical behaviour, though. He is constantly underestimating the true cost of living for everyday Australians. I am just here to put on the record for him, again, that the cost of living is three per cent higher in Western Sydney, in the seat I represent, than it is in Sydney. I am not going to go into the details of why that is, but I suggest he does some further reading on the comparative costs of living for harbourside mansions and battlers in Western Sydney. He is saying one thing and doing another.

The cuts are unfair to the students receiving an education entry payment. These students are eligible for the payment if they are in an approved course and are a recipient of Newstart, parenting payment single, the disability support pension, special benefit or a carer payment. In 2016-17, about 11,700 people received the education entry payment. I would put to anybody that that is not a huge number of people—11,700 people, in some of the most vulnerable positions in our community, are recipients of this payment to help them get ahead. This is what this payment is for. They are in study. They are doing everything we're asking of them. They are trying to better themselves. What are the government doing? They are going to cut them down. They are casually going to come along and take some money off them, saying: 'It won't matter to them. What would they notice? How will that affect them?' Of those 11,700 people, 4,805 were recipients of parenting payment single. Let me tell you from firsthand experience about being a single parent. It's tough. It's hard work. Some 2,986 were recipients of the disability support pension, 2,762 were recipients of Newstart and 826 were recipients of the carer payment.

As well as being a single parent, I'm also the carer of a child with a disability. So let me tell those people opposite, because clearly they've missed the empathy gene on the way out the door before being given birth to, it is really, really hard work to be a single parent and to be a single parent of a child with additional needs. It takes an enormous amount of additional time, energy and resources. Making a cut to something that is trying to support them is inhumane. I note that those opposite also have no problem coming along to Carers Week events, posing for photos, wearing badges and espousing the importance of all the unpaid work done by carers, but, when it comes to actually supporting the work of carers through something like this, they've left the building.

In my electorate, 115 people received the education entry payment in the 2016-17 financial year to September 2016. The government likes to talk about corporate tax cuts and the now very discredited trickle-down economics, but the very people they say will benefit from this measure are the people they are penalising with the measures they have on the table now. And all this is to what end? I think the member for Warringah and his mates who are on the other end of the spectrum to where we sit are certainly going to be appeased by measures like this. Cutting the education entry payment will make things more difficult for students. The effect of this bill is that every student who is currently eligible for the education entry payment will be subjected to criteria to determine the level of their study load—from 25 per cent to full-time study. The education entry payment is an annual payment of $208 to assist with the cost of education. Depending on the determination of a student's study load, up to full time study, the recipients of the education entry payment could receive a cut of $52, $104 or $156, or it could be cut entirely.

Does the Prime Minister know how much a textbook costs? In my electorate, at the Western Sydney University Penrith campus in Kingswood students enrolled in the engineering materials course are prescribed by their lecturers Fundamentals of Materials Science and Engineering. A brand-new copy of that textbook costs $196—let's just call it 200 bucks. Second-hand, you can pick one up for $152. If the Prime Minister was studying engineering materials, he could easily afford, from his harbourside mansion, a hundred new copies of this book—a thousand new copies! But for a student on a supplement studying one subject and facing these cuts, the cost of this textbook could be the making or breaking of someone studying that course. Again in Western Sydney, students studying enterprise law are prescribed by their lecture a business and law textbook—$137 for a brand new one and 110 bucks for a used one. The $1.75 million donation that this Prime Minister made to the Liberal Party at the last federal election to secure his own job would have purchased a whole lot of those textbooks.

I raise Western Sydney University because 60 per cent of students at that university—of which I'm proudly an alumni member—are first in family. Sixty per cent of those students are the first in their family to have the privilege to attend university. Fifty-seven per cent of their students are female, 37 per cent are from linguistically-diverse backgrounds and 25 per cent are low socioeconomic students. For the battlers who are struggling to make ends meet, who are on Newstart, living with a disability or caring for someone, it is a massive, massive whack to their budget, and it is fundamentally unfair. This is more of the same of what we've seen from those opposite—pushing the cost of education onto the student and making it more and more difficult to study. We should be supporting students because they're having a go.

These cuts are unfair to students receiving the pensioner education supplement. Almost 38,000 get the pensioner education supplement, and of those receiving that supplement 4,805 were recipients of the parenting payment and are single parents, 2,986 are recipients of the disability support pension, 2,762 are recipients of Newstart and 826 are recipients of the carer payment. That's a lot of people who are trying to study; that's a lot of people who could be affected by these cuts. To be eligible to receive the pensioner education supplement, a student needs to meet the study rules and already be receiving one of the payments outlined. These people are trying to study either full- or part-time at a secondary school or completing an undergraduate degree, a TAFE course for a diploma or a graduate masters course. These payments are predominantly received by people with disabilities, carers, sole parents and unemployed people who have taken up training or studying—which is exactly what we should be imploring them to do and supporting them as they do it.

In my electorate, in September, 391 people were getting the pensioner education supplement—that is, 391 people who are already doing it tough, relying on our social services safety net. The government wants to take away the supplement from these students. We are, in my electorate, battlers. We are strong. We are 'have a go' people. We don't sit around and expect people to do things for us. We get out there and have a crack. I often speak in this place about how good and how salt of the earth the people in my community are. These students in my electorate do not need more cuts from this government. They are single parents, people with a disability, people looking for work, and carers. Let that sink in. The people who are in receipt of this kind of payment are exactly the people that this country and this government should be supporting. They are struggling to stay studying. We want them to stay studying. We want them to have a better life. We want them to do better. We want their kids to do better. They already have barriers to study and work such as health issues, caring responsibilities or simply being on a low income. These cuts are just going to make it more difficult and put more hurdles and more barriers in place. Their studies could lead to a better job and a better life and improve their wellbeing. Now the Turnbull government and all of those people who support this legislation want to make it more difficult for them.

With the proposed changes to the pensioner education supplement, these people will be paid only during study periods and not during their semester breaks or holidays. We have what I would term 'semester breaks' from parliament. Imagine if you said to all the MPs here: 'You're not going to get paid during those breaks. You're only going to get paid when you go to Canberra.' We know that a lot of work is done when we are back in our electorates, but we're on a break from parliament, and these kids are on a break from school or study. The government is going to stop these supplements during that period of time. Imagine you are a low-income earner and studying and you are already struggling to pay bills, but because the semester or term has ended that payment stops. That reliable income that you have budgeted for is not there. These people often have jobs as well while they are studying. When I went to university I had four jobs in my first, second and third years at university. I had four casual jobs to pay my rent and car payments, and it was just enough to make ends meet. Working and studying was a huge load, but I did it—and I did it with the help that I was able to receive. We know that the bills don't stop coming in those semester breaks—the rent still needs to be paid and the lights still need to work—so why would we stop the payment to these students during their semester breaks?

The cuts are cruel. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says that he wants people to find a job—tick; that's great. A fundamental thing for everybody is to have a job, but it makes it more difficult to study. The thing that we know will improve our chances of finding a job is education. I think I have even heard the Prime Minister say those things himself. These cuts will affect the students who are already doing it tough to get a better life. Not only that but the Australian Council of Social Service estimates that 75 per cent of pensioner education supplement recipients are women. The changes in this bill will disproportionately impact women who have started a course or are training to get back into the workforce. Women are traditionally, as we are very well aware, the primary caregivers. Time and time again we see people in Western Sydney who dragging themselves up by their bootlaces being unfairly targeted as not worthy.

The pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment were both introduced to help social security recipients with the cost of studying. The Liberals have been trying to abolish the education entry payment and pensioner education supplement since 2014. The education entry supplement and the pensioner education supplement are commonly paid to recipients of parenting payment single, 94 per cent of whom are women. Women are already subject to great gender bias in Australia. I'm really looking forward to coming in here the next time this parliament sits and, as we come to White Ribbon Day, watching everybody march out their white ribbons, roll up their sleeves and say, 'What great people we are.' When you are just out there as a talking head and are not actually interested in doing the work that goes on to bridge some of the gender gaps in this country, it is easy. But the action required from this government is seldom there.

The slashing of penalty rates also disproportionately affects women. Women face the discrimination of a gender pay gap of 16 per cent in pay rates and hiring, women attract lower wages and carry the load of unpaid caring and domestic work, and women are over-represented in lower paid industries. They are a third more likely to be underemployed and more likely to be employed as casual workers in insecure jobs. We've had a case this week highlighting the gender pay gap. One of our very high profile and esteemed women in the media, quite intelligently and cleverly, has really taken a stand; and congratulations to Lisa Wilkinson. This is why I'm up here talking about the gender pay gap.

Around Australia, 9,400 people receive both payments and are facing the government's cruel and unfair cuts. The Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee received a submission from People with Disability Australia and their CEO, Steph Gotlib. In their submission, which succinctly summarised the substantial financial hardship people will face under this bill, they said:

If the Bill is passed those on the lowest incomes, including people with disability, will be further pushed into poverty and financial hardship. It will make it harder for people with disability to start or to continue undertaking education. Plans to cut these payments are counter to the Government’s focus on increasing employment opportunities through further education. Whilst expectations for pensioners to undertake education increase, the very means of supporting access to education for pensioners are being cut.

The government is seeking to make savings off the back of the lowest socio-economic groups, battlers and vulnerable members of our communities, who are struggling to pull themselves up by learning, studying and expanding their horizons through education. I am very pleased not to be supporting this bill.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like others on this side of the House, I strongly oppose the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017. As the St Vincent de Paul Society observed in a well-reasoned submission to the inquiry of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee into the bill, these proposals cut existing payments to those who need them most and re-enforce existing disparities in access to education. The main losers here will be the young, the disabled and women. It might be a little bit unfair to suggest that these three groups are among the government's preferred targets, so let's just say that they are among the most familiar ones. It's a recurring theme, isn't it?

The proposed changes aren't just mean and parsimonious but very short-sighted. In one form or another, they have been a dark cloud hanging over the community in education sectors for the last two parliaments. We hear time and time again from the other side about how much they value education. But it appears they only value education to their constituents, not to everyone. These cuts will affect tens of thousands of Australians. Even ex-service men and women seeking to make a fresh start or to better themselves by furthering their education or acquiring new skills will be drawn into the net.

As submissions to the recent Senate inquiry noted, the bill's key proposals have no convincing policy rationale, like many of the changes coming from the other side. While so-called streamlining is given as a justification for one small set of changes, the main elements of the bill will add further complexity to what all agree is already a complex set of legislative and administrative arrangements. The government had the opportunity by way of the recent Senate committee inquiry to expand on its reasons for persisting with the proposed cuts but declined to do so. Having abandoned its totally untenable plan to abolish the education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement, the government apparently now feels that it's entitled to the equivalent of a free pass on this bill.

The government says that the measures will save $96 million in total over five years. That sounds like a lot of money but it's a tiny fraction of the annual cost to the federal budget of negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions given to some of Australia's wealthiest people. It really is a shame, and something that this government should hang its head about. The proposed saving would not even be enough to meet the cost of the same-sex marriage plebiscite, much less the billions the government plans to give foreign based and foreign owned multinationals by way of corporate tax cuts. The government will argue that you have to start somewhere and every little bit helps, but why start here with those most disadvantaged? Why pick on those already struggling? Why pick on those who are undeniably the most disadvantaged? Why do that? For instance, poverty rates among unemployed single parents—one of the principal targets here—are 10 times higher than for lone parents in paid work. It's hard enough to overcome these sorts of odds as it is, without government coming along and cutting one of the few benefits that might help you find a way back to employment. The proposed measures will potentially harm around 50,000 recipients annually. About 10,000 of them will be hit by more than one of the proposed cuts. In the case of the pensioner education supplement, 41 per cent receive the disability support pension and over 80 per cent are women. As you can see, they are targeting the most disadvantaged yet again.

This bill poses a serious threat to those wanting to better themselves in their future job prospects. The proposed changes to the pensioner education supplement, in particular, will not only add to existing complexity but also open up new areas of uncertainty in determining what constitutes a study period for the purposes of accessing support. The proposed savings also come at a cost. In the longer term, both the community and the budget bottom line will end up paying the price of keeping people in poverty and not giving them the help they need to get an education and access to a decent job and a better life. Surely the minister must know that. Surely he can't have forgotten his own fine words in September last year when, addressing the National Press Club, he said:

The hope for a young Australian facing challenging family circumstances today will be that the system is going to provide for them with immediate support, but also surely they should expect that the same system will not just set them and forget them.

Surely they expect that as well as welfare money given in the here and now, that support is going to be thoughtfully structured in a way designed to help them cope, not just in the present, but also in a way that maximises their future opportunities for self-reliance.

The approach taken here is to whip away the immediate support and hope that in the long run self-reliance will magically somehow win through. The contents of the bill have already been extensively debated and examined, including by three Senate committees. In one form or another, the two core elements of the bill have been around since the first Abbott-Hockey budget and have been before this House on five previous occasions. They foundered each time, with very good reason. The substance of the present bill was referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee in late June and the committee, which divided on party lines, reported on 7 September. The committee didn't conduct public hearings and took no evidence apart from eight submissions prepared by community organisations and one prepared by the minister's department. The latter was pretty perfunctory, running to just four pages. It added nothing to the minister's second reading speech and the explanatory memorandum. I guess that after four years, even the departmental officers must be a bit over it. Carers Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service, People with Disability Australia, Children and Young People with Disability Australia, the Australian Association of Social Workers, the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children and the National Social Security Rights Network each made submissions to the Community Affairs Committee inquiry. Each of those submissions opposed the bill. Not one single community organisation supports this bill.

There are four elements to the bill. It will further limit eligibility for the relocation scholarship for youth allowance and Austudy recipients. It will make it harder to access the full education entry payment, currently only $208 per annum, that assists students in meeting some of the up-front costs of entering improved training and education programs—an absolute pittance. It will cut fortnightly supplementary support for many students engaged in other than full-time study by linking student workload requirements to a less generous and more complex formula for calculating entitlements. It will stop the pensioner education supplement being paid to students during non-teaching periods such as semester breaks. I'd add one other thing: it completely complicates the whole access to support for people who already have poor resources and who are already struggling. It is really shameful.

What ties these proposals together is they will cut needs based supplementary support to people undertaking bona fide education and training programs. The bulk of costs of participating in those programs, including the opportunity costs, are met by the participants themselves. The payments under attack aren't handouts. They are a leg-up, they're support and they're help. For the vast majority of those to be affected, government support covers only a fraction of their actual costs. As anyone who has been in training or who has children in educational support knows, the costs are much higher than these pitiful payments. They are not overly generous; they are very poor. For instance, the education entry payment, which is meant to partly cover the start-up costs of entering training or a course of study, has remained largely unchanged since its introduction in 1992. Back then, in the pre personal computer and pre laptop era, the educational entry payment was $200 per annum. Currently, it stands at a magnificent $208 per annum! That is a change of $8, if my maths is correct, in 25 years. It is pathetic.

The supplementary payments that this bill will erode are not available to all students, only those facing particular barriers to entering formal training and higher education. You can't access those supplementary payments unless you are in a disadvantaged or dependent category and meet the stringent eligibility requirements for attracting a primary government pension or benefit, such as youth allowance, ABSTUDY, Austudy, Newstart, the carer payment or the disability support pension—et cetera. That's as well as being an Australian resident and undertaking approved qualifying studies. The requirements are already onerous.

The government is also missing the point in arguing, in respect of some of its proposed cuts, that those who have their payments reduced can take out a student loan. HECS HELP, FEE-HELP and VET FEE-HELP loans simply don't cover many of the up-front and ongoing costs involved in participating in education, which are met in part by these supplementary payments. Nor are those generic, loan-based forms of support sufficient to meet the particular needs of all of those suffering disability or disadvantage. It also seems to have escaped this government's attention, too, that this is one of the most difficult times in many decades for those seeking to fight their way out of poverty, overcome disadvantage and enter the work force. The proposed measures also form part of a constellation of government cuts to education, cuts to universities, higher student fees and less accommodative payback periods for student loans under HECS and HELP.

The government also seems blissfully unaware that income support and family payments have gone backwards in real and relative terms in recent times. Income support payments have fallen further behind average wages even though average wages are stagnant. If you're a single mum working one shift a week, you've had your family tax benefit rate frozen and there's a good chance you have seen your penalty rates cut too. Cost of living pressures are always most keenly felt by those on lower incomes. You expect that would be the case even if the principal costs faced by those enduring financial hardship weren't rising faster than consumer prices more broadly.

As the most recent ABS figures confirm, it's pensioners and persons who rely most on government support who are under the most pressure from healthcare costs; gap fees; and housing, insurance, gas and electricity costs, which are rising much faster than the CPI average and are also rising much faster than their wages. Unemployment rates are stuck at near-record-low GFC levels. Underemployment rates are at record highs. This is not an easy time to be digging your way out of poverty or confronting hardship and debt, yet this government is not making it any easier. In his 2016 National Press Club speech, to which I referred earlier, the minister rightly bemoaned the complexity of Australia's social welfare arrangements—and he has just made them more complex. If anyone in the country has a right to complain about government red tape and overregulation, it's the poor and the disadvantaged.

Presently, only about 300 of the 23,000 students in receipt of the relocation scholarship fall into this category. A further 150 Australian resident students who are currently studying overseas were also able to access the relocation scholarship. The government asserts that such students can only access the scheme because of a loophole in the current law and that the relocation scholarship should only be available to those having to move to and from remote and regional areas within Australia for study purposes. Whatever the intention of the parliament in enacting the scheme in 2010 and then amending it in 2015, there is a solid argument for not disadvantaging the small number of Australian students with both parents based overseas who also meet all the other mandatory requirements necessary to qualify for a relocation scholarship. Such students are up against the same problem that remote and regional students living in Australia face—through no fault of their own they have to relocate a significant distance to further their studies. I note, too, that there are humanitarian concerns that young people who arrive in Australia as unaccompanied minors might also be disadvantaged by the proposed amendments as they currently stand.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that, despite the claim of better targeting, none of the savings made will be distributed to enhance continuing entitlements but will simply be skimmed off into consolidated revenue. The government does not have the luxury of arguing that funding is being shifted from the deserving to the even more deserving. Nor is this bill about better targeting or streamlining. They are merely euphemisms. This is a government grab for cash—nothing more, nothing less—and it's from the most disadvantaged people in our community. It really is shameful. We have seen a litany of these bills come through the parliament in the last few weeks. One has to wonder about the psychology of a government that continues to attack, time and time again, those in the community who are most disadvantaged yet is continuing to allow concessions to the wealthy, such as capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing, and also major tax cuts to big business.

This is a government that does not seem to want to give the poorest a leg-up. Perversely, it's an attack on the very sorts of people this government says deserve support and encouragement, but it does the opposite—the self-starters and the very people who are trying their hardest not to let adversity get the better of them. This is really quite a comedown from the lofty ideals outlined by the minister. It's lazy, unimaginative and bullying government at its very worst.

Linda Burney (Barton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today with my Labor Party colleagues—including the member for Macarthur, who articulated very well what Labor feels about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017 and what Labor's position is—to oppose this bill. Here we go again. The Prime Minister and the Liberal coalition government are making yet another attempt at cutting support to ordinary and low-income Australians. The changes proposed in this bill will predominantly affect people with a disability, carers, sole parents and unemployed people who are reskilling and retraining. I see this bill not just in the context of social policy but also in the context of economic policy. The bill shows that the Prime Minister and the government are absolutely out of touch and are completely oblivious to the true costs of living for most Australians. In fact, it is uncaring.

I am deeply concerned by the proposals contained in schedules 2 and 3 of this bill—namely, the government's proposal to remove the eligibility for education entry payments for recipients who undertake less than 25 per cent of the full-time study load and the government's proposal to cut the amount payable under the education entry payment for those undertaking between 26 per cent and 75 per cent of the full-time study load. These payments function to give income support recipients the opportunity to reskill and to re-enter the work force, and isn't that what we want, so that this country has a consistently evolving and innovating workforce? The Prime Minister says that it's important to get income support recipients into the workforce. Yet there is a cut to the very payments and supports designed to do exactly that. I don't know whether it's incompetence, chaos or just a lack of caring.

Schedule 2 is the education entry payment. The education entry payment is an annual payment of $208 to assist certain social security recipients with the cost of education so that they can eventually re-enter the workforce. Recipients of Newstart, parenting payment single, the disability support pension, special benefit payments and the carer payment and some closing payment recipients are eligible to receive the education entry payment if they are studying an approved course. But what this bill proposes in schedule 2 is to link the amount of support received under this payment to study loads or the amount received under the pensioner education supplement.

The bill creates a definition for a normal amount of full-time study, and the payment received will be determined by the study load as a percentage of the full-time study. Students with a study load of between 51 per cent and 75 per cent will be $52 worse off per annum. Students with a study load of between 26 and 50 per cent will be $104 worse off per annum. In the 2016-17 financial year, 11,662 people received the education entry payment. Of those, 4,805 were recipients of the single parenting payment, 2,986 were recipients of the disability support pension, 2,762 were recipients of Newstart and 826 were recipients of the carer payment.

Recipients of the payment are less likely than other students to be able to undertake studies full-time, as they often have health barriers or caring responsibilities, as just articulated, that prevent them from doing so. The overwhelming majority are recipients of single parenting payments or the carer payment and disability support pensioners. Disproportionately, the carer payment and the parenting payment are paid to women, and it follows that this schedule will disproportionately impact on women; 94 per cent of recipients of single parenting payments are women.

I am also concerned about schedule 3, which includes cuts to the pensioner education supplement. The pensioner education supplement is a fortnightly payment to some social security recipients to assist with the ongoing cost of study. Currently the pensioner education supplement is paid at $62.40 per fortnight, or $1,622 per year, for full-time students or $31.20 per fortnight, $118 a year, for part-time students. That is a lot of money. It is paid in every fortnight, and the recipient receives the payment from Centrelink. This bill cuts the pensioner education supplement during non-study periods. This will result in a cut for every recipient of the supplement, as it will no longer be paid every fortnight of the year. How stingy and how mean is that?

Recipients of the pensioner education supplement, like recipients of the education entry payment, are less likely than other students to be able to maintain a full-time study load, because of health barriers and caring responsibility. Those with a study load of between 51 and 75 per cent and those with a study load of 25 per cent will be $15.60 worse off per fortnight. In the 2016-17 financial year, 37,717 people received the pensioner education supplement. Of those, about 16,000 were on the single parent payment, about 15,000 were recipients of the disability support pension, over 3,000 were recipients of the carer payment and well over 2,000 were recipients of Newstart—the same groups I spoke about earlier. The Australian Council of Social Service estimated that 75 per cent of recipients of the pensioner education supplement were women. It follows, as I said regarding the previous schedule, that this will disproportionately impact on women.

There is a theme emerging here. This is the latest attack on everyday, ordinary Australians—most significantly, Australians who are in receipt of those payments and who are desperately attempting to retrain and reskill themselves and get into the shrinking job market. And we have heard much about the fact that there are so many people who are underemployed. This is the very group of people the government says it wants to get into employment, yet these two schedules are doing everything to make it difficult for that group of people.

The Prime Minister and the government talk about getting income support recipients standing on their own feet and getting back into the workforce, as I just said, but how can one believe that? How can the public believe it?

More importantly, how can this significant group of people believe the government's rhetoric when the reality is that the mechanics of government are making it much more difficult?

The Prime Minister's favourite buzzwords of 'innovation' and 'agility' hold about as much political substance as something that evaporates. They look good; they sound good; but, ultimately, you just don't know what the Prime Minister actually stands for—and, by association, what this government stands for. If we want income support recipients off income support and back into the workforce, we need to help them reskill and skill up to ensure they are best placed to re-enter the workforce. If we want a constantly evolving workforce that meets the constantly evolving needs of the economy, we need to provide income support recipients with the capacity to reskill and skill up. These Australians, who so happen to need a bit of help to support them while they undertake further study, are being disproportionately punished.

I find astonishing the contempt with which this government views income support recipients. I have articulated this week and in the past, as my colleagues have, on countless occasions, the—I can't even find the words—veil of invisibility over that rhetoric. The pursuit of 20,000 Australians with the robo-debt recovery; forcing older Australians to wait for almost a year to qualify for the age pension; drug testing income support recipients despite the evidence against; 42 million unanswered calls to Centrelink; underfunding and under-resourcing Human Services, including axing 1,100 jobs; cutting back backdating payments, cutting back eligibility for the age pension: the list goes on in this victimisation. Those opposite are only interested in making it so difficult and so painful, and in feeding negative stereotypes about people who need our support—people who rely on governments of both persuasions to help them in the most difficult of times. This means that you on the other side are completely out of touch, and people understand that.

One of the principles of this country, one of the things that Australians pride themselves on, is the notion of a fair go, and this bill and these measures are not about a fair go. A fair go includes the times when many Australians require support. To cut these payments is, as I said earlier, stingy and mean. The education entry payment and the pensioner education supplement are most commonly paid to recipients of the parenting payment. As I said, most of them are women. A single mum working one shift a week has just had her family tax benefit rate frozen and her penalty rates cut, and she could be facing a loss of the energy supplement as well. The government say that they have given up on their unfair cuts, but we know—and this is an example—that those unfair cuts are well and truly alive.

This is a war being waged by the Liberals on the social safety net, something that we as Australians have built, should be proud of and should be protecting. We believe those who are unable to help themselves should be supported. We believe those who make a reasonable attempt at contributing to the economy, contributing to the community, but are unsuccessful, for many reasons, should be given the necessary support until they are in a position to do so. That is socially responsible. It is economically responsible, which is of course an important point. Labor believes in strengthening our social safety net, not diminishing it or overseeing its demise. Labor believes it can be and should be accessible and accountable to all Australians when they need it.

I finish my comments by saying that those of us on my side of the House are the people that are taking up the cudgels for those that need support. It astounds me that, in the desperate search for a negative narrative about people on income support, the government is undertaking these stingy, mean cost-saving measures to the cost of people who are seeking to improve their lives; to the cost of people who want to contribute to the economy; to the cost of people who are demonstrating, by re-entering the education and skilling system, that they are committed to what we are all committed to in this place, and that is getting people into employment.

Do not try to paint Labor as not wanting to get people back into employment. That is scandalous. That is what we want to do, and that is what these measures are doing, yet you see fit to slash those measures. You see fit to take away the very thing that is giving some people the hope of being able to re-skill and re-enter the workforce. Do you really think people want to be unemployed? Do you really think people want to have a disability? Do you really think people want to rely on a social safety net for their entire lives? No, they don't. Labor has been clear: if people are scamming the system, they should bear those consequences, but to put this bill into this place, attempting to undermine the very people you say you want to support, is nothing less than scandalous. It's duplicitous, and you should be ashamed of yourselves for doing so.

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

I wasn't on the list but I am called to speak. I am moved to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Better Targeting Student Payments) Bill 2017, not just to fill three minutes and avoid a division but because I wish to condemn the government in the strongest possible terms for this latest attack on the most vulnerable Australians. This bill slashes support yet again to low-income Australians. Abolishing the pensioner education supplement, paid to 11,000 people, and the education entry payment, paid to 38,000 people—and I note there are about 9½ thousand people who get the double whammy and lose both—is a disgrace. These payments, quite simply, are to help social security recipients with the costs of study. $62 may not seem a lot to those opposite, who've just awarded themselves—and everyone in this House, to our shame—a tax cut, along with everyone else earning over $180,000, but to people on the disability support pension, carers, sole parents and the unemployed, these payments are critically important to helping them into study or training.

I know this, because I was raised by a single mum. When we were at school, I saw the difficulties that going back to do a year 12 subject caused my mum. That was one subject, while trying to raise two kids. I'm proud to say that she topped the state in VCE psychology—probably trying to understand her two kids! I saw the difficulties firsthand, and I know the difference that these kinds of payments can make in my community. They incentivise and help people.

These are zombie measures. We have seen them before. They've been hanging around since 2014. You can kill a zombie only by finding its brain and hacking it out. Obviously the government hasn't managed to find its own brain and hack it out, or we wouldn't be having this debate yet again, day after day, month after month. They're based on the flawed trickle-down theory embedded within this government's political and budgetary priorities—that is, if you cut spending, take away from the most vulnerable in society, give tax cuts to the rich, give Gina Rinehart and her mates the biggest tax cuts in the country with $65.4 billion, somehow everyone will be better off. I'm going to say the 'p' word. I know those opposite get sensitive when you say the 'p' word: poverty, poor people. If you take that trickle-down economic theory to its logical conclusion then you should plough poor people into the fields for a more efficient use of their carbon.

We have seen the big picture that this budget measure sits within. There is the tax cut to the top end, the $65.4 billion of multinational tax cuts, and further defence of regressive taxation loopholes—negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. Yet this budget measure is also accompanied by a tax rise for everyone else in the country. There is bill after bill, taking away five bucks here, 10 bucks there, a hundred bucks there. They are having another go at the age pensioners: 'Let's take a little bit off migrant pensioners who spend eight weeks overseas visiting family before they die.' They are cutting funding for education and lowering repayment thresholds for any young person earning $42,000. Apparently that makes you rich enough to repay your uni debt and start a family while putting up with frozen family payments. The list goes on. When you compare and contrast who gets benefits, who gets money, where they spend the money and where they take, you see what the government really thinks of those at the bottom.

The other word they get sensitive about is inequality, because they do not accept there's a problem. Any self-help manual says, 'You have to accept there's a problem before you're able to address it and do anything about it.'

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member for Bruce will be given an opportunity at that time to conclude his contribution.