Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise and speak on this piece of legislation, the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017. This bill effectively gives effect to two distinct measures that were announced in the 2017 budget. The first is around some of the new arrangements pertaining to No Jab, No Pay and Healthy Start for School. The other component gives effect to the government's response to a 2015 report that was presented to this parliament following an inquiry by the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee. I was Labor's deputy chair during that inquiry. That report was From conflict to cooperation. That was back in 2015. I'm delighted that now, in 2018, three years down the track, we have at least the beginnings of a response to some of the recommendations that were put forward during that very important inquiry into the child support payment system in Australia.

Firstly, in relation to the part of this bill that relates to No Jab, No Pay, I think it's important at the outset to state very clearly that Labor has long supported this approach, and we certainly have no concerns regarding that component of the legislation, as indeed the majority of the recommendations around child support that appear in schedule 1 of the bill here. We do—I will come back to this point in more detail after discussing the No Jab, No Pay component—certainly have concerns, as the shadow minister and the member for Jagajaga earlier articulated. Labor's concerns are around the changes relating to amended tax assessments and potential overpayments. The basis of that concern is that child support recipients who have received those child support payments in completely good faith will have already expended those moneys in caring for their children. It is very likely that there could be an unexpected debt that would arise for those parents, who have received that money in good faith and expended it on the care of their children. That is an issue of concern. As the member for Jagajaga made clear earlier on in this debate, that is an issue that we have taken up directly with both the former minister and the current minister. We're awaiting further advice from the minister on our concerns, so we would reserve our final position there, including whether or not we would seek amendments in the Senate. We are seeking further information on the potential impact of those changes. There are some genuine concerns; we just need to have the government's position clarified there and make sure that those potential impacts are well known so that we are making well-informed decisions on this legislation now.

I turn now to the first component of the bill concerning No Jab, No Pay. As I said, Labor has absolutely no concerns about lending our support to this component of this bill. We certainly believe that every child in Australia deserves the best start in life possible. We support every effort in this place to better strengthen the immunisation rates in Australia. We on this side of the House absolutely back in the science in this regard. We have spoken out very loudly on many occasions when there have been some in this House and, indeed the other, who have been tempted to be critical of the issues around vaccinations and the good they do in our community. We've made it very clear on each and every occasion that, when it comes to vaccinations, we will always back in the science around the need to have high immunisation rates in Australia.

In government, Labor made some important changes to family tax benefits that were designed to increase immunisation rates and, indeed, we went to the 2013 election with some additional amendments. The principles on which the current No Jab, No Pay policy are based have enjoyed bipartisan support in this parliament for many, many years. I think that we should remain very strong advocates. I'm pleased that members opposite have shared the concern around the temptation that some people in the community have to get a bit lax and start questioning the science around vaccinations.

In tightening up of some of the efforts to increase immunisation, the legislation is proposing to withhold an amount of $28 a fortnight from the family tax benefit part A to those families that don't meet the immunisation requirements. That's the fundamental change in this legislation. The reduction in family tax benefits on a regular fortnightly basis would, in fact, replace the current system where you withhold the end-of-year tax supplement. Effectively, the change in this legislation is necessary because the abandonment of the end-of-year supplement has necessitated a change in legislation. It's also necessary, because families earning more than $80,000 a year are no longer eligible to receive that end-of-year supplement. That's really the main point I wish to make here. For those families earning more than $80,000 a year, this amendment is absolutely necessary to ensure that they, too, make sure that their children are well covered and vaccinated as well.

We know that vaccination remains the very best means we have to halt the spread of infectious diseases in Australia and to keep Australians healthy. We have strong immunisation rates here in Australia, which have contributed to the eradication of many infectious diseases over time. Some children's vaccines were introduced in Australia as far back as 1932, and the death rate from vaccine-preventable diseases has fallen from 99 per cent since the introduction of vaccines. There are no qualms on this side of the House on the need to ensure we have high rates of immunisation. We understand the science; we understand the issues around herd immunity. We know that one of the most effective means of ensuring that everybody hears that message from this parliament loud and clear is to make these necessary changes now so that the No Jab, No Pay changes kick in on 1 July. There is no room for complacency on this issue. We on this side of the House are very happy to back it in.

I will just touch finally on some of the matters that came before the committee during the inquiry into the child support program. Indeed, there were 25 recommendations that the committee raised and put to the government. Regrettably, this legislation looks at three of those recommendations. Whilst I certainly welcome the government finally, belatedly, acknowledging some of those required changes, as I said at the beginning, there are some concerns that we still have around some possible unintended consequences of those changes.

The first component that I'd like to look at is part 1 of schedule 1 and the proposed changes to the length of interim care periods. These changes seek to deal with the fact that there can be fundamental discrepancies at times between parents where there is a level of actual care that is going on within some of these families, and then there also some care arrangements in place which may or may not reflect the actual care being given. Disputes about care arrangements are, indeed, rife in the disputes more broadly amongst the child support system, but disputes about care arrangements are generally resolved by family law courts. Until this proposition, the Child Support Agency, for example, has not been able to enforce care arrangements. Certainly the inquiry received lots and lots of evidence around the discrepancies, as I said, between actual care provided and agreed care arrangements.

Having said that, I would just like to put on the record again that the child support system in Australia—which today involves some 1.3 million parents and has a payment system reaching some 1.1 million children in Australia—is a remarkable system in many ways, but we are dealing, very often, in these cases that this legislation is seeking to address, with people who are caught in, sometimes years of, entrenched conflict, and dealing with very complex issues and sometimes trauma and, indeed, very vulnerable families. That's the nature of a lot of family law in Australia. So there is an arrangement that generally runs for this interim period of about 14 weeks, and these proposed changes to the length of interim care periods are an attempt to seek to address the issue that the 14-week period which is currently in place can, in special circumstances, be extended. But that period of time, 14 weeks, is generally not enough time for disputing parents to resolve their differences and, indeed, to get a just and fair outcome. I think anybody who has had experience of the family law system in Australia would understand that. So I think that the recommendations here, in terms of those changes to interim care, are worthwhile.

I would just flag that, currently, there is still an exemption from participating in dispute resolution processes for those people who are experiencing domestic and family violence. I would put on notice here that I believe the government is seeking to change that component. In another, unrelated, inquiry, around family law matters, it has been said that some of the alternative dispute resolution processes would absolutely reach out to people who are victims of family and domestic violence. So I would put us all on alert on that matter.

As I said at the outset, we just have some concerns around whether or not the other changes put up here would have some unintended consequences relating to the generation of a debt in a matter where the receiving parent would have had absolutely no capacity to have known that a debt would have been generated. The receiving parent may have spent that money in good faith and may be financially disadvantaged. We seek some government assurances that would not be the case.

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

I rise to speak on the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017. I thank the member for Jagajaga for the work that she does in this area. Everybody's children come first, no matter what their circumstances are, no matter what postcode they're born in and no matter what parents they end up with. But it's imperative that we encourage parents to keep their children's wellbeing at the forefront of any discussion when parental payments are being negotiated. It's easily said but much harder to do. We must put the needs of children first and assist separated parents to determine how children and their needs will be cared for, and the supportive arrangements around that.

Labor supports the bulk of the proposed changes in schedule 1 of this legislation. According to the department, 1.3 million parents contribute to their children's welfare through the child support program. This supports 1.1 million children in this country who, through no fault of their own, are impacted emotionally, financially, physically and in a whole range of other areas. These children do not need their respective parents to make them suffer, and suffer through financial hardship. Our children deserve the very best that we can offer them. Although parents may be separated physically, we know that their children should never be, or are never, far from their minds. But, that said, the responsibility of caring for and supporting their development is not only emotional but also financial. And this is where it starts to get a bit tricky.

All parents enter into the parental contract at the start, during the child's conception, and should always be there throughout that child's life. It's a lifetime commitment that will continue long after the children become adults. The Child Support Scheme ensures that parents who do not live with their children because of separation do what's right and make financial contributions towards that child's upbringing. Whilst some may say that the Child Support Scheme is based on the principles of parental responsibility for the financial wellbeing of the child, the reality is that financial responsibility should always be at the forefront of raising children in separated families. We know that the rates of poverty are much higher in separated families, and it is everybody's responsibility to ensure that this doesn't happen. This is a responsibility that is shared and is not abrogated by separation. We need to allow for adequate support for children based on the payers' income, self-support amount and the percentage of that income assessed on the basis of a fair amount that any parent would contribute in an intact family. We recognise that everybody's financial circumstances differ, and we take into account the parents' financial position and also the percentage of care. Again, the best interests of the child or children involved must be paramount.

Labor recognises that child support payments and the system are not perfect. They are absolutely far from perfect. But the system provides a framework to administer and transfer child support payments based on formulated assessment and agreement or court-ordered register with the Child Support Agency. On this side, I guess that we would hope that people—adults—in this situation would be able to work out those payments in the best interests of their children, without the need for Child Support or the Family Court to intervene. But we know that that's just not the case. We know that a huge number of families end up on the wrong side of this argument, and it is a great shame on this country—and a bad reflection on those parents involved—that they do not do the right thing by their children. Their children become collateral damage, and it is left to us to decide and determine the outcomes.

The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs conducted the inquiry into the child support program and delivered their report From conflict to cooperation in June 2015. That was before my time here, but I thank them for their work, having read over it. It is a shame to see that only three of the 25 recommendations made by that committee have actually been implemented or are being looked at being implemented, almost three years down the track, when we do have those families in conflict and those children that are relying on us to make those decisions for them because the grown-ups in their lives just can't do it. I think that that is a poor response.

Labor agreed with the recommendations from the report, including the recommendation that:

… the Australian Government review the Child Support Program to ensure the adequacy of calculated amounts and equity of the program for both payers and payees …

Our difficulty is with the equity of the possibly punitive measures that could impact adversely on recipients of deemed overpayments that would cause a debt to be made to the other parent. That obviously has the potential to impact more women than men who have a debt and where repayments are to be made through no fault of their own. The inquiry's recommendations into the child support program stated:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government amend legislation to enable a greater period of time before determining when to adjust the amount of child support payable in interim care determinations. The Committee considers that the current fourteen week period, after which Department of Human Services changes the child support payable to reflect the care taking place at that time, does not provide sufficient time for relevant legal proceedings to be completed or for prior agreed arrangements to be enforced by a court or for revised arrangements to be agreed upon. The best interests of the child must be paramount in any amendment made.

Interim care arrangements must be designed to allow parents the time to sort out the care arrangements and resolve disputes over care. This involves more families that are affected by family violence than not. Fourteen weeks is not always long enough to resolve disputes over care that may be required through dispute resolution or legal proceedings, which are impacted by the Family Court. The current Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs handed down a report at the end of last year saying the same thing: the delays in the Family Court system are impacting parents' ability to raise their children and support them financially.

Labor supports the amendments to the interim periods to make the system much more flexible than it is now in order to meet the needs of children and parents who are sharing custody and those in high-conflict situations. As the shadow minister Jenny Macklin said, we are concerned that child support recipients who have received child support payments in good faith will unexpectedly owe debts, having already spent the money on care for their child. Child support payments are not for parents to do what they will with. They generally support keeping a roof over a child's head and food on the table, as well as the provision of school uniforms and the ability to go on school excursions. They are not for parents to do what they will with. Anybody who thinks that's what happens in a single-parent household is certainly mistaken and needs to take a look into what it is like to raise children in a single-parent family.

The child support assessments can be varied in the next financial year if an income tax assessment is incorrect. The inadequacies of the childcare payment system need to be addressed and, in particular, this section of the bill needs to be further investigated for the potential impacts of the changes. Retrospective assessments and adjustments could create large and unexpected debts for parents. This is problematic. It absolutely places further psychological and financial burdens on people struggling already to cope with the breakdown of any relationship, and it creates a burden on recipients of child support payments. Until this is addressed, we have advised the government that we will reserve our final position on this bill. There needs to be a method to collect overpayments—absolutely—but there is the concern that these proposed changes will adversely affect the payee and create a debt where money received has been spent in good faith.

It is designed to place a burden of guilt on the primary carer—male or female—who will, on top of everything else, need to second-guess their former partner's previous and current financial circumstances. People need certainty, not disruption, and less financial hardship. Any changes to the child support program need to reflect the sensitivity of cases where domestic and family violence is involved. This is especially relevant to the psychological impacts and also where the abuse has been financial. We are now doing a much better job as a society in recognising all types of family violence, and this needs to also be reflected in the policies we're making. The child support program must not be an ongoing tool for further abuse. The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs have looked into the same and we know it is currently happening to many families across this country.

Also in the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017 is the immunisation part to consider. I believe immunisations are absolutely effective and they save lives. It's estimated that vaccines currently save three million lives each year worldwide. We know that before vaccines were discovered—long before I was a twinkle in my mother's eye—infectious diseases killed many, many adults and children worldwide. The programs that we have now provide for a safe and efficient way to prevent the spread of many, many diseases that cause serious illness, hospitalisation and, occasionally, death.

Major vaccination campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s saw diseases like tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough almost eradicated in this country. Due to the miracle of vaccinations, it is now extremely rare to die from these diseases. Vaccinations safeguard the health of our kids, which is important to all of us—and, if it's not, it should be. Labor support the No Jab, No Play component of the legislation. We know that immunisation programs are best for our kids to ensure their safety and stop the spread of communicable diseases like polio, smallpox and measles. If enough people in the community are immunised, the infection can no longer be spread from person to person and we can kill off the disease altogether—for example, as in the case of smallpox. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1980—also the year I was born—after a concerted campaign of surveillance and vaccination led by the World Health Organization. I am incredibly grateful that they stamped that out before I arrived. A similar campaign by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative has succeeded in reducing polio cases, with only a few isolated cases remaining in the developing world. I would also like to place on the record my thanks to Rotary International for the work that they do in eradicating polio.

In 2014, the World Health Organization declared that Australia had eliminated measles but not eradicated it. Measles is highly contagious and is spread in the air through coughing or sneezing by someone who is unwell with the disease. Measles can be imported from overseas where the disease is prevalent, which is why it is so important to have the herd immunity effect. We know that sufficient levels of vaccinations create an effective barrier to disease transmission if the disease is found in unvaccinated pockets. Vaccines mean less disease and considerably fewer deaths. Vaccines allow our bodies to produce an immune response without suffering the symptoms of the disease. These immunisations are based on provable science. The benefits to our communities are immeasurable, and their health is our primary concern.

Children need to be immunised against hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, influenza, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, pneumococcal, chickenpox and meningococcal C. There are school vaccination programs for a whole bunch of things. I am very proud when my kids come home from school and they've participated in one and got their stamp of approval. But not everyone can be vaccinated. Infants that are too young to be vaccinated rely on the herd immunity effect. This is even more reason for strong vaccination numbers in our community—to protect those kids who are really vulnerable and stop the spread of bacteria and viruses.

We have high immunisation rates in this country. I condemned Senator Pauline Hanson at the time, and will continue to do so, for her unfounded comments around immunisations. As a parent, I know that no-one wants to see their child suffer through illness, especially an illness that is preventable through vaccination. I am particularly offended when I hear people link vaccines to autism. As a mother who has raised a child with autism and as a sister who has nursed her comatose sister through meningococcal disease, let me tell you: I would take the autistic child every single day over the one who almost died from a now almost preventable disease through a vaccine. People who spin myths and mistruths about what vaccinations can do to our community ought to be ashamed of themselves. In fact, it is a great shame that we didn't see the Prime Minister take more leadership at the time of Senator Hanson's comments—but I will continue my support for vaccines.

Since the beginning of 2016, parents of children under the age of 20 years have been required to have their children assessed as fully immunised for their age to be eligible to receive the family tax benefit part A end-of-year supplement. The bill changes the No Jab, No Pay policy to withhold approximately $28, or $2.02 per day, from family tax benefit part A fortnightly payments instead of withholding the end-of-year supplement where a child does not meet the vaccination requirements. If children are not fully immunised, there is the ability for parents and families to participate in the vaccination catch-up programs. This can easily be organised through the use of their Medicare card at their local healthcare provider. There will be a 63-day grace period to allow families time to catch up. If during this grace period they do not get a medical exemption or they do not participate in the catch-up, their payments will be reduced. Labor continues to support the No Jab, No Pay policy and the amendments proposed. Labor has and always will support families and their children no matter the circumstance, and I am proud to have stood here today and delivered my speech and my support for this.

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

I'll just make a few remarks on a couple of aspects of the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017 and related matters. And I compliment my friend the member for Lindsay on her remarks and the way she so often manages to weave her personal story in a respectful and insightful way and share that while commenting on matters of public policy.

Firstly, in relation to schedule 1, part 1, which makes changes to the length of interim care periods: in one respect this change is, in my view, a step in the right direction, and I want to talk about it a little bit. I'm speaking in particular because a number of constituents in my electorate have over the past 12 to 18 months approached me with their view about the unfair impacts of this current arrangement, limited to 14 to 26 weeks. The current rules provide that where parents are not undertaking care in accordance with the approved care plan they can apply, or the registrar can issue an order, to provide for different amounts of payments for a period of time.

However, I'll quote from some of the correspondence from a constituent. I won't name the constituent. It was said to me that it was agreed that she be named the primary carer of her two children and share that caring responsibility with their father. It was determined that, for one child, living arrangements would be shared between both parents, and the other child would be free to live with either parent as per that child's wishes. Unfortunately, despite the care arrangements being agreed to, the other parent consistently demonstrated a refusal to comply with these court orders from the outset. That necessitated, after attempts to informally resolve the matter, my constituent resorting to taking out contravention proceedings as a 'final resort', in her words. At those proceedings the non-custodial parent was formally warned by the court and agreed to abide by the orders. Actually, I shouldn't say 'non-custodial', as it was a case of shared custody—it was the parent on the other side of the dispute. In return, my constituent agreed to halt proceedings because they were simply seeking an agreement to the orders.

However, putting that aside, a different policy issue that hopefully can be taken up through some of the inquiries kicking off this year is the inability or difficulty of having court orders actually enforced by anyone but the Family Court and the expense. I'll quote my constituent, who said their distress was: 'further compounded through an administrative policy of the Child Support Agency, which calculates support payments based on actual care. While the intention of this policy is well meaning and designed to correct the payments of non-primary-care parents who consistently fail to take up their care obligations, the policy also catches parents that are victims to the other parent taking the child or the children against the court orders and then have the temerity to seek financial support to do so. So, in effect, there's a perverse financial incentive which some non-primary-care parents seem to take advantage of to actually keep the children for more and then seek money for that.' The only avenue presently available to my constituent to have the parenting arrangement enforced is to litigate matters before the Family Court, which, as everyone knows, is an expensive, time-consuming and emotionally distressing process in itself.

The assistant minister, Senator Seselja, eventually wrote back and acknowledged all the facts of the case. There were a number of paragraphs that really repeated my letter back to me, but that was good. He then acknowledged that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs made a recommendation regarding interim care determinations in its report From conflict to cooperation: inquiry into the Child Support Program. The dates are important: that was tabled in the parliament, here in the House of Representatives, on 20 July 2015. He then provided my constituent with a link to a very long report which probably wasn't that helpful, anyway. The guts of it was that the 14-week period the committee considered does not provide sufficient time for mediation or for prior agreed arrangements to be enforced by a court, which makes sense. It's kind of difficult at the moment to get a hearing in the Family Court and get a matter resolved within 14 weeks.

Somewhat to my surprise, though, when I corresponded back and said, 'It's all very well that you say you've agreed with this, but when might this actually happen?' I got a further letter from Senator Seselja, who said: 'Don't you worry about that. We'll be doing this and there'll be a start date of 1 January 2018.' To the government's credit, the legislation was introduced in September last year. However, this bill has been yet another victim of the badly managed legislative program and has not gotten through in time. I've got a number of letters from ministers saying that this legislation would be in effect on 1 January, but it's not.

Of course, as the member for Griffith would remember, the Prime Minister, when he was at risk of losing control of the House last year, decided to just cancel a week of parliament. It was intimated to the Australian people that there was nothing to do up here except the marriage legislation. Remember, there was nothing to do last year—the House really had no business! The 53 or so bills on the Notice Paper apparently weren't reason enough for us all to come to Canberra and do our jobs.

Ms Butler interjecting—

Yes, indeed. Instead, this is yet another one of those bills that we could have been here debating last year and it could have come into effect by 1 January, helping my constituent and many other non-primary-care parents—or primary-care parents, as the case might be—who are in this situation. Shame on the government for taking the weak option of not negotiating a legislative program for that week that could have cleared out some of the work of the parliament.

I acknowledge in commenting on this clause that these matters are always subject to compromise. It's a very difficult area of life, law and policy. We're balancing competing rights and intense emotions in setting rules to regulate these disputes. Often there are reasonable people with different perspectives on what is right for their family or children. But there are not always reasonable people. There are people who take advantage of loopholes in legislation—in this case, keeping kids for longer than the care order purely for the purpose of them being able to demand extra money. I hope that the revised periods set out in this bill will address the situation and provide a fairer balance, but time will tell. I suppose if they don't then we may need to revisit the matter again.

The second thing I want to raise is the slightly obscure or confusing parts of the bill in relation to changes to the tax assessment and repayment arrangements. I want to put on record to the House one of the more bizarre constituent cases—a different constituent—that I again received late last year, which has been the subject of an unreasonably large amount of correspondence between your predecessor, Minister for Social Services, and the Minister for Human Services and the Assistant Minister for Social Services and myself. It was about a Mr McColl of Wheelers Hill. I can name him here because it was the subject of some quite curious media reports last year. He received a letter from the Department of Human Services' child support agency regarding the recalculation of a historical child support amount. The letter, somewhat to Mr McColl's surprise, advised him that he owed his former wife $2.62 in child support payments for the period between 1 and 30 June 2008. Almost 10 years later, his former wife must have made some minor adjustment to her tax return—nothing to do with him—and out spits a letter saying he owes $2.62. He was particularly surprised to receive this letter considering his son is now 24 years old and is well out of the child support system.

I, of course, was concerned that the Department of Human Services was wasting their time and wasting all the paperwork that no doubt goes on in actively recovering small, near-negligible amounts of money from people who've been out the system—$2.62! Goodness knows how much it cost to produce and post that letter. I thought, 'He wants me to take this up.' I said, 'We could let it go,' but he said: 'No, I want you to pursue it. This is completely ridiculous. It's a complete waste of government money.' So I wrote to the then-Minister for Human Services, the member for Aston, and he responded, 'Yes, it's a bit silly'—that's paraphrasing as he really repeated my letter back to me in very bureaucratic tones—'but my department is required by legislation to collect even small amounts of the assessed rate of child support if the receiving parent has elected for it to be collected on their behalf.' I thought, '$2.62—there are no thresholds, no discretion. That sounds a bit silly.' So I wrote back again and said, 'Well, that's all very nice, Minister, but why is there no administrative threshold or decision-maker discretion in regard to the recovery of negligible debts in such circumstances?' It really does seem to be a highly questionable use of public money and resources to pursue such insignificant sums, even nearly a decade after the fact.'

They must have scratched their collective heads in their ministerial offices, and I got a letter from a different minister this time—Minister Tudge had said it was a matter for Minister Porter, as the then Minister for Social Services, so we had to write to someone else. This letter contradicted what Minister Tudge had said, and said, 'Well, there is no legislated minimum amount regarding the requirement to pay outstanding child support.' So what Minister Tudge had told me was wrong. He said that he was required to collect it; yet the policy minister for social services, his assistant minister, said that you're actually not, because in limited circumstances the Department of Human Services does have discretion not to pursue recovery of a debt. Then the letter went on to talk about some of the changes which are set out in this bill in relation to care disputes and amended tax assessments.

Again, magically, we're back here again—that we're going to have a start date of 1 January this year. That's clearly not going to be met, and changes relating to child support agreements and overpayments will have a start date of 1 July. So I would hope that the legislation does come into effect in a reasonably foreseeable time and that in the department, whether through changes to the legislation or its own policy discretion—which clearly is there, as one minister contradicted the other minister—some common sense will prevail and that there will be some system to stop this nonsense of sending people letters asking for $2.62 of debt incurred 10 years ago.

The final set of comments I would make are in relation to No Jab, No Pay. I applaud this measure set out in schedule 2. It ensures there's integrity in the rules to withhold family tax benefit part A from parents who don't keep their child's immunisations up to date. We are so lucky to live in Australia where, because of many decades now of national immunisation, we've forgotten or never known the impact of mass death or disability by vaccine-preventable communicable diseases. Of course, there are enormous public health benefits, and the case is proven. I, for one, have no hesitation in recording loudly and clearly that I accept the scientific evidence that overall vaccinations save lives. As one of the doctors who was quoted last time this came up in the media said unambiguously, 'Babies will die if not vaccinated.' Shame on the government for not rebuking their good friend Senator Hanson for her stupid, dumb, conspiracy driven nonsense last year.

As has been said in comments on related bills, vaccinations only work at a population level if you get to about 95 per cent. So you've got to get about 95 per cent of people in the community vaccinated to get what the scientists call herd immunity. Any amount below that and you start seeing outbreaks of the disease again. It's just how the population levels work. Disturbingly, we've seen in recent years in some parts of Australia rates of vaccination fall to around 90 per cent, and we've started to see diseases re-emerge. That is shocking, and it can be stopped.

I want to praise Victoria and put on record my gratitude and admiration for the efforts of the Victorian government who in the last week have said that 95.3 per cent of five-year-olds are now fully immunised in Victoria, hitting that herd immunity—the best result in their history. We should praise the Andrews Labor government for getting there. They've taken a strong approach on vaccination. They've brought back the free whooping cough vaccination program for mums and dads in 2015, after it was axed by the former state Liberal government, to protect the youngest Victorians from this deadly disease. I pick that as just one example. So it is important to note that this integrity measure is important. By removing about $28 a fortnight of their family tax benefit, it sends an important signal to parents that they do have to do their vaccinations and there are sanctions through the No Jab, No Pay policy. That complements the Victorian government's No Jab, No Play policies, which are being seen to have such a positive impact and could be recommended to other states that are courageous enough to go down that route.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017 introduces new No Jab, No Pay and Healthy Start for School measures, along with a range of improvements to the Child Support Scheme. The bill will ensure that, from 1 July 2018, children must meet immunisation and health check requirements before their families can assess the full entitlement to family tax benefit part A. The current No Jab, No Pay and Healthy Start for School compliance measures will be abolished and replaced with a new measure linking immunisation and health check requirements to a family's fortnightly rate of family tax benefit part A.

The new measure will serve as an immediate incentive and constant reminder for non-compliant parents by reducing their family tax benefit part A payment throughout the year rather than when their family assistance is reconciled at the end of the year. If a child does not meet their immunisation requirements after a 63-day grace period has passed, an amount of around $28 will be reduced from the child's fortnightly rate of family tax benefit part A. The choice made by some families not to vaccinate their children is not supported by public policy or medical research. Nor should such action be supported by taxpayers in the form of family payments. Families who receive income support payments will also be encouraged to ensure that their four-year-old child meets the health check requirement for the Healthy Start for School measure or be subjected to a reduced amount of family tax benefit part A. This is not a cost-saving measure. It replaces and builds on the existing Healthy Start for School policy and the No Jab, No Pay policy, which has already achieved significant increases in child immunisation coverage rates across Australia. The new No Jab, No Pay measure is expected to achieve further increases in immunisation compliance.

The bill also introduces a range of child support measures that demonstrate this government's clear commitment to making meaningful improvements to the Child Support Scheme. In the 2017-18 budget the government committed $12.4 million towards the implementation of three priority recommendations from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into the Child Support Scheme. The bill introduces changes in relation to recommendations 8, 12 and 22, which were identified as key areas in which current policies can lead to outcomes that are inconsistent with the objectives of the Child Support Scheme or require parents to go through onerous processes to arrive at the correct outcome.

From 1 January 2018, child support and family assistance legislation will be amended to provide better outcomes for parents who are in dispute about their children's care arrangements. Child support legislation will also be changed to allow amended tax assessments to be taken into account for child support purposes in a broader range of circumstances. For disputed care changes that occur within the first year of a court order, this bill will extend the current 14-week interim period that may apply before the actual care of a child is reflected in the child support assessment and for family tax benefit purposes up to 52 weeks. Where a disputed care change occurs after the first year of a court order, the 14-week interim period will be extended to up to 26 weeks if the person with increased care does not take reasonable action to participate in family dispute resolution. For care arrangements in a non-enforceable written agreement or parenting plan, the interim period will remain at 14 weeks where the disputed care change occurs in the first year after the agreement or plan is made. For older agreements and plans, the interim period will also be 14 weeks if the person with increased care does not take action to resolve the dispute. However, where the person with increased care does not take reasonable action to participate in family dispute resolution, a shortened—four-week—interim period may apply.

These amendments to the interim period provisions are designed to strengthen incentives to comply with court orders or participate in dispute resolution processes about care. They also introduce a requirement for the person with increased care to participate in family dispute resolution in order to have the current, shorter interim period apply, which appropriately recognises their role in withholding the child by putting the onus on them to take action to try to resolve the care dispute. These provisions will not apply if there are special circumstances in relation to the child, such as where there is evidence of family violence.

In regard to amended tax assessments, the legislation does not currently allow an amended tax assessment to be taken into account in a child support assessment unless the amendment was made due to fraud or tax evasion. The government is fixing this issue to allow an amended tax assessment to always be taken into account in a child support assessment if it results in a higher taxable income. Amended tax assessments that result in lower taxable income will also be taken into account if a parent seeks the amended tax return within 28 days of receiving their original tax return, within 28 days of becoming aware of an error in their original tax return or if special circumstances apply. These amendments will allow a parent's true taxable income to be more easily reflected in their child support assessment and will result in more accurate assessments, helping to ensure that separated parents are taking responsibility for the costs of raising their child in line with their capacity to do so.

The bill will also amend child support legislation to make it easier and simpler to set aside child support agreements in certain circumstances and to create greater equity in the collection of child support debts and overpayments, to take effect from 1 July 2018. Parents who entered child support agreements prior to 1 July 2008 were not required to seek independent legal advice before entering into the agreement. However, when limited and binding agreement types were introduced into child support legislation on 1 July 2008, these older agreements became transitional binding agreements and have since been governed by the same strict rules that apply to binding agreements, in which both parents must have sought independent legal advice prior to entering the agreement.

This bill introduces a separate and less restrictive test for a court to set aside a transitional binding agreement where one of the parties to the agreement did not obtain legal advice. In addition, this bill introduces provisions that will terminate or suspend the effect of a child support agreement if the person who is entitled to child support for a child under the agreement ceases to be an eligible carer of the child—that is, where the person's percentage of care for a child falls below 35 per cent. This will ensure that a person who is no longer caring for a child will not be entitled to finances that were intended to meet the needs of that child under a child support agreement. The ability to administratively terminate or suspend an agreement removes the need for a paying parent to apply to a court, enabling changes in circumstances to be more easily reflected in child support assessments.

In regard to overpayments of child support, the bill expands the methods available to the Department of Human Services to recover a child support overpayment from a payee to align with the current methods available for recovering child support debts from payers. This amendment simplifies the administration of the scheme by ensuring the government is able to collect child support overpayments in the same way as payer child support debts and ensures money owed by either parent is treated in a similar manner.

The bill also expands the basis upon which an overpayment is recoverable to ensure that all backdated reductions to a child support assessment, which had previously been collected by DHS on behalf of the payee, will be recoverable by DHS. Additionally, new backdating provisions will provide a fairer basis for retrospectively creating a child support overpayment or arrears. These changes will increase the fairness of the child support scheme by ensuring that payees with overpaid child support are treated in the same way as payers with debts and by improving the backdating provisions for certain changes in circumstances. The child support legislative changes contained in this bill will help to ensure correct outcomes and improve the administration in around 90,000 to 100,000 child support cases each year.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.