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

I'm speaking today on the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Bill 2017. This bill gives effect to two measures announced in the 2017 budget: firstly, the government response to the parliamentary inquiry into the child support program and, secondly, supporting No Jab, No Pay and Healthy Start for School's new compliance arrangements. Labor supports the No Jab, No Pay component of this legislation as well as the majority of the proposed changes to child support in schedule 1. But we do have some concerns about the changes relating to the amendment of tax assessments and overpayments, and I'll come to that. We're concerned that child support recipients who've received child support payments in good faith will unexpectedly owe debts having already spent that money caring for their children. We've made representations to the minister on this issue and requested some further information. We will reserve our final position on this, including whether any amendments are required in the Senate, until we get this further information on the potential impacts of the changes.

Labor, of course, believe that all children deserve the opportunity to have the best start in life, and we support the efforts in this legislation to strengthen immunisation rates so all Australian children have the best chance at growing up strong and healthy. In government, Labor made important changes to family tax benefits designed to lift immunisation rates. We made the decision to link the family tax benefit end-of-year supplements to immunisation. Ahead of the 2013 election, Labor committed to further tighten immunisation requirements within the family payment system. So the principles on which the No Jab, No Pay policy are based have enjoyed bipartisan support for a number of years.

Let me say very clearly for the record that Labor strongly believe in vaccinations. Vaccinations are one of the great success stories of human development over the last century. We've seen the eradication or near eradication of diseases such as polio and smallpox, including here in Australia. In the early 1950s Australia had just come through its worst ever polio epidemic. Around 10,000 Australians a year, mainly children and teenagers, were contracting polio. No treatment was available for the virus. Polio results in paralysis by destroying nerves cells in the spinal cord. Australia started using the newly discovered polio vaccine shortly after and, by the end of that decade, Australia almost eliminated the disease.

According to the World Health Organization in 1980, prior to widespread vaccination, measles was responsible for around 2.6 million deaths each year. In 2013, the number of deaths from measles had fallen to around 145,000 worldwide. There can be no doubt then that vaccinations save lives. Vaccinations save lives by increasing the so-called herd immunity. Herd immunity means that, when immunisation rates are low, illnesses such as measles or whooping cough can be much more easily spread. In a community where a large number of people are immune as a result of vaccines, the chain of infection can be stopped—the greater the number of people who are immune, the smaller the probability that those who are not immune will come into contact with the infection.

The good news is that immunisation rates are improving. Since No Jab, No Pay commenced in 2015, around 200,000 families have taken action to ensure they meet immunisation requirements. Victoria has achieved its best ever immunisation coverage ,with 94.9 per cent of five-year-olds up to date with their vaccinations. The increase followed the Victorian government's No Jab, No Play law, which bans unvaccinated children from attending child care and kindergarten. In addition to supporting this legislation, I commend the Andrews Labor government in Victoria and, in particular, the health minister, Jill Hennessy, for her leadership in this policy area.

This policy approach is working and is improving immunisation rates, but we can't be complacent. In 2014, the World Health Organization said that Australia had eliminated measles. Australia is one of the first countries in the Western Pacific to do so. But unfortunately, late last year, we saw an outbreak of measles in Melbourne. Back in April 2017, we also saw an outbreak of measles in Western Sydney. A total of 28 people in New South Wales and 18 people in Victoria were diagnosed with measles as at November 2017. So the issue is still very relevant here today. As we understand it, the cases in New South Wales originated from infectious people who contracted the virus overseas and brought it back to Australia. However, falling immunisation rates risk exposing Australians to these outbreaks. Falling immunisation rates increase the risk of outbreaks of preventable diseases and threaten the health of the most vulnerable members of our communities, especially newborn babies. This is very important. High rates of immunisations are vital to people for whom a vaccine may not produce a strong immune response. These vulnerable people in our community are generally protected from preventable diseases by herd immunity. Large vaccinated populations protect those who are weak or susceptible to disease. That's why it's important that we maintain and encourage high rates of immunisation across the country. Our responsibility as policymakers is to support policies that are designed to improve immunisation rates and make the community safer. That's why Labor will support the No Jab, No Pay policy in this legislation and the amendments to it.

Currently, parents who do not keep their child's immunisations up to date are not eligible to receive the family tax benefit part A end-of-year supplement. The family tax benefit part A supplement is paid at $737 a child for families with incomes below $80,000 a year. This bill amends the No Jab No Pay rules to, instead, withhold approximately $28 a fortnight from family tax benefit part A for families whose child does not meet the immunisation requirements instead of withholding the supplement. This schedule would come into effect on 1 July 2018. Under the new rules, fortnightly payments would be reduced from the time that the child's immunisations become overdue. When a child's vaccinations are overdue, the family would be notified and a 63-day grace period would apply for the child to receive the vaccination or for a valid medical exemption to be obtained. If the vaccination is not caught up within the 63-day period or a valid exemption is not obtained, the fortnightly reductions will begin from the beginning of the grace period. This change is required as the existing rules do not apply to families with an annual income in excess of $80,000 a year as they're no longer eligible to receive the family tax benefit part A end-of-year supplement. So, as I say, this is a measure that Labor supports.

I move to schedule 1, part 1: changes to the length-of-interim-care period. This is a separate part of the legislation to do with child support. Currently, the amount of child support and family tax benefit payable is assessed with regard to the paying parent's taxable income and the amount of time they spend caring for the child or children. Sometimes one parent is providing more care than is provided for under a court order or agreed care arrangement. In this instance, the other parent may be aggrieved because they're not getting as much opportunity to care as they want or believe they're entitled to and they're paying more child support than they feel they should. A registrar can make a care arrangement, which is an interim determination based on 'a written agreement, parenting plan or court order' rather than on the actual care. That arrangement generally runs for an interim period of 14 weeks. In special circumstances, it can be extended up to 26 weeks. The amount of child support paid during that interim period is based on the agreed care or court order, not the actual care, provided that the paying parent is taking reasonable steps to seek compliance with the parenting arrangement. This option of an interim period is intended to give both parents time to resolve the dispute over care. After the interim period elapses, the child support assessment changes to reflect actual care.

In 2015, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs tabled the report of their inquiry into the child support program called From conflict to cooperation. The committee made 22 recommendations, all of which Labor supported. The committee heard evidence that 14 weeks is shorter than the normal length of time that it would take parties to resolve their dispute over care, given the length of time it takes for dispute resolution to commence or legal proceedings to be resolved. The proposal in part 1 of this schedule is to change the length of interim periods. For disputes about care where there is a pre-existing court order, the interim period would be up to 52 weeks if a disputed care change occurs within the first year of the court order, or up to 26 weeks for older court orders if the person with increased care does not continuously take reasonable action to participate in family dispute resolution through the maximum 26-week interim period, or between 14 and 26 weeks for older court orders where the person with increased care continuously takes reasonable action to participate in family dispute resolution. In practice, this seems likely to usually be 26 weeks, as the child support inquiry heard evidence from the Attorney-General's Department that the average time between contacting a family relationship centre and the first dispute resolution session is approximately 12 weeks.

For disputes about care where there is a non-enforceable agreement of a parenting plan, not a court order, the maximum interim period will be 14 weeks. This will be reduced to a minimum of four weeks if the disputed care change occurs after the first year of the agreement or plan and the person with decreased care continuously takes reasonable action to participate in family dispute resolution. The interim period ends if the person with reduced care stops seeking to enforce the order, agreement or plan. It also ends if a new care arrangement begins to apply or if the existing one stops applying. Currently, an exemption from participating in dispute resolution processes is available in situations where there's been family violence. These exemptions will continue to be available.

I will now move to part 2 of schedule 1, changes to tax assessments. Currently, the amount of child support paid is calculated on the basis that the individual's tax assessment for a given year is correct, and it cannot be recalculated if the tax assessment is shown to be incorrect unless special circumstances exist, such as tax evasion or fraud. This is problematic where payer parents are obligated to pay an amount of child support that is artificially high and unaffordable or, alternatively, an insufficient amount of child support as a result of their tax return being incorrect. This part of the bill allows for the amount of child support to be recalculated based on an amended tax return. In circumstances where an amended tax assessment results in a higher adjustable taxable income, the higher adjustable taxable income would be applied retrospectively to the paying parent's child support obligation over the course of the year.

If the amended tax assessment results in a lower adjusted taxable income, this would also be applied retrospectively if the paying parent applied for the amendment of the tax assessment either before the lodgement of that year's tax return fell due or within 28 days of becoming aware of the issue with the tax assessment, unless special circumstances exist. This reduces the amount of any potential overpayment that could be claimed from a payee by requiring that action be taken quickly on behalf of the payer. Nevertheless, we have concerns that this could lead to child support payees unexpectedly receiving a potentially large debt, having received payments and spent the money in good faith, trusting that the information that was provided to the tax office was accurate. Child support recipients are often on very low incomes and are unlikely to be able to service a debt, particularly where it has arisen through no fault of their own. We have raised this concern with both the former Minister for Social Services and the new minister, and, as I indicated earlier, the minister is considering the matter. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.