Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum and—by leave—move amendments (1) and (2), as circulated, together:

(1)   Schedule 3, item 1, page 36 (line 13), omit "30 June 2023", substitute "31 December 2023".

(2)   Schedule 3, item 2, page 37 (line 26), omit "30 June 2023", substitute "31 December 2023".

These are sensible government amendments, and I would like to say that the government has listened. There has been some discussion. I thank Senator Rice in particular, with whom we've had some very productive discussions, along with a number of crossbenchers here in the House—the member for Mayo, the member for Goldstein, the member for Kooyong and the member for Fowler. What this seeks to do is extend the legislation for this boost in the income bank for pensioners, which was due to end on 30 June 2023, to 31 December 2023. This is a government that listens. We've heard from the community that a good 12 months to see if this income boost is to work—and we believe it will—is a good period of time to support this trial. This was announced as a workforce incentive policy at the Jobs and Skills Summit, and after discussion and consultation we believe this is a sensible amendment. The time frame for the work incentive bill ceasing at 30 June 2023 allows the Department of Social Services to assess the uptick in workforce participation by older Australians and those receiving eligible payments, and to analyse trends across labour markets.

As a government now responsible for addressing what is a difficult budget position, we believe that our measures do need to be responsible and meet their clear objectives. We must be responsible, and that's why we have a time limit on this measure to assess its impact and its success. The six-month extension is a sensible one, and the government will make this amendment today. This will allow new age pensioners, and other eligible pension recipients of age-pension age who are coming onto their pension from 1 July 2023, to also benefit, allowing what will be a relatively smooth transition if those pensioners do want to continue to do more work. It means that from the commencement until 31 December 2023—not 30 June—age pensioners, disability support pensioners and carer payment recipients over age-pension age, as well as certain veterans' entitlement recipients over qualifying age, will have $4,000 credited to their work bonus income bank for use during that year.

Once passed through the House and the Senate, all existing eligible payment recipients of the age pension will receive the automatic top-up of their work bonus income bank. I think this is a sensible amendment, and I ask for the support of the House.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will support this amendment to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Workforce Incentive) Bill 2022. It's quite unusual for a government, just six weeks after introducing a bill, to amend it in this fashion. We congratulate the government to some extent for listening to what the opposition has put forward for a number of months. Sadly, the government has dragged its heels on this—workforce shortages have been present and getting worse for month and months. We saw the government dragged their heels on introducing the bill to start with—they've now had to swallow their pride and move this amendment today, which we will support.

It still doesn't go as far as the coalition's announcement in June, when we put in place the superior work bonus incentive to allow pensioners to earn up to $600, doubling the $300 that's currently in place. As I said yesterday in moving our amendment to this bill, pensioners need the certainty in many instances to be able to enter into arrangements with employers and others, so we do congratulate the government for backflipping on their hard date of 30 June—which was always inappropriate. We outlined from the beginning that it was inappropriate. We still think that the government should give itself more flexibility and give more certainty to pensioners by having a measure such as this—indeed, the coalition's superior measure is an ongoing measure—that is assessed every 12 months, as opposed to having a hard cut-off date of 31 December. But a hard cut-off date of 31 December is better than 30 June. We appreciate the government swallowing its pride and moving an amendment to its own bill just six weeks after they introduced it.

They could've just taken our policy that we announced for June. They could have listened to employers, they could have listened to pensioner advocacy groups, who for the entire duration of this government have been asking for movement on this. Indeed, the first two schedules to the bill as first introduced—again, we congratulate the government for taking both of those schedules from a bill that the former coalition government introduced in February. They added schedule 3 to the bill, which was the only new part of the bill. I suspect that this amendment goes part of the way to try to deal with the errors that that initial bill created.

The opposition will support this. It still doesn't go as far as the coalition's superior policy that we announced months ago, but we will always support improvements on bad policy. This is an improvement to what was originally put in place by the government, and we will, therefore, be supporting it today—unlike the government who, in the last sitting period, voted against amendments to a bill that was agreed to in the Senate that would have entitled pensioners to the benefits, largely, of schedules 1 and 2 to this bill. They voted against that in the last sitting fortnight, and yet bring forward this bill in this sitting fortnight. It makes no sense. It has made pensioners wait longer than they needed to. This is already late. The government has already dragged its feet on this. The workforce shortages and the disincentives for pensioners to work additional hours have been getting worse and worse by the month.

We will expedite that process now by not moving any further amendments or dividing on this bill. We will support it. But the minister and the government have to get better at moving quickly on the sorts of issues when they arise in our economy, because businesses cannot wait months and months and months for bills to be brought forward. Then they can't wait for the government hashing out their own bill that requires amendments like we see today. They can't wait for a government voting against amendments that were substantially passed by the Senate, making pensioners in Australia wait even longer.

We will support the bill. I want to thank all of the groups who have helped inform coalition policy which has led this debate, which has really pushed the government to moving. Yes, they've been slow, I would say to all those groups, but imagine how much slower they would've been had we not got on the front foot and collectively pushed the government into the right direction here. We will support these amendments. Again, I want to thank everybody who has contributed with the development and the leadership of coalition policy in this area.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just wanted to rise to thank the minister for circulating this amendment, which I'm happy to indicate that Greens will be supporting. It reflects close conversations and negotiations between the minister and Senator Rice's office, and we feel this is an improvement to the bill. I want to thank the National Seniors for their consultation and advocacy on this issue. This change to the bill reflects their willingness to fight for a better deal for all older Australians. We're going to keep fighting for a fair income support system that provides supports to everyone who needs it. There are other changes we will keep fighting for, but this amendment is an improvement to the current bill and we support it.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.