Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

It's my pleasure to introduce to the parliament the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023. This bill seeks to amend the qualification criteria for the Australian government disaster recovery payment as outlined in the Social Security Act 1991.

It will be no surprise to anyone in this chamber or anyone in this country that we are seeing more intense floods, cyclones, bushfires and storms in our beautiful country. These disasters take an enormous toll on the citizens who are affected by them. That toll is physical, emotional, psychological and financial. Communities have been destroyed by disasters. Homes and, tragically, lives have been lost.

It is very important to our government that we ensure that individuals across Australia are supported in the aftermath of these disasters, and it is critical to the recovery of communities that this occur.

The Australian government disaster recovery payment, or AGDRP, is one of many support mechanisms the Australian government provides to disaster affected communities. The AGDRP provides short-term, one-off financial assistance to eligible Australians who are affected by these crises.

It offers a helping hand in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, and this payment has already assisted tens of thousands of impacted Australians in recent years.

The payment—$1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child—is delivered by Services Australia. It helps with the purchase of essential items for the family and for the child. It helps replace damaged household items, clothing, school supplies or toys—whatever is needed in the immediate aftermath of an event to help Australians and their families to recover.

This amendment will support faster and more efficient assessment of online claims for those who have been adversely affected by major disaster. This is achieved by legislating objective criteria on which to assess claims for AGDRP to support increased use of automatic decision-making.

It is critical that Services Australia can process claims quickly in the event of a major disaster. This amendment will help achieve that for Australian citizens and certain visa holders who have spent a particular amount of time in Australia, and/or care for a child or children who are adversely affected by a major disaster, before the major disaster is declared.

These amendments will support Services Australia to deliver payments to those who qualify for the payment within days, rather than weeks or months.

The amendment, if passed, will allow the emergency management minister to determine, by notifiable instrument, an amount of time that an applicant must have been in Australia before a major disaster to qualify for a payment. For now, the government intends to require that a person must have been in Australia for 13 weeks of the last 19 weeks prior to the disaster.

This test ensures that support goes to Australians who are living here and contributing to their community. It is also consistent with the test used for some other payments under the Social Security Act.

The amendment also makes some changes to how the payable rate for AGDRP is calculated in respect of a person who qualifies for a payment and has a child, or children, in their care. These amendments are intended to support quicker processing of payments that include children.

These amendments are not intended to reduce or increase the number of individuals who are eligible for AGDRP.

This bill makes amendments to facilitate faster processing of claims. It means a greater number of impacted Australians will be able to access financial support quickly after a major disaster.

The next high-risk weather season is due to begin in October: We bring this bill to parliament for its urgent consideration because we know that this is likely to be the first significant fire season since Black Summer. Disaster preparedness is critical to our democratic resilience and we're doing everything we can to be as prepared as possible at every level.

While the seasonal outlook predicts more fast-moving grass and scrub fires rather than the bigger forest fires experienced in 2019-20, after a few seasons of intense rainfall and floods, we know that that these outlooks bring a huge amount of stress for communities. The communities that we know are going to be particularly vulnerable as we go into this next disaster season are communities that have experienced many other natural disasters in the immediate preceding years, and I know this is a time of real concern for them about what this coming season holds.

Disasters will happen in our country, and we as a government cannot avoid that. With climate change, weather conditions are becoming more extreme and disasters will happen more frequently. This is a reality we cannot ignore and a good government would not ignore. We need to be as prepared as possible for future events.

That is why this government is committed to improving the way in which we deliver the assistance we provide.

This bill is a further step in that process.

It provides the government with greater ability to quickly and efficiently support communities affected by disasters, when the scale of disaster is such that Australian government help—beyond what is ordinarily delivered by a state or territory government—is required.

The Australian government stands ready to support disaster ravaged communities, providing the support they need to help them get back on their feet as quickly as possible, and with this bill we are ensuring we provide that support as quickly as we possibly can.

I talked in the parliament earlier this week about the disaster season that is about to begin in our country. We've got really good advice that we are on track for increased possibility of disasters in some communities that have been severely ravaged by natural disaster in the preceding five years. The Albanese government are doing everything we can, with the knowledge that we have, to prepare for this. Part of that is making sure that we are doing the necessary work on the ground to improve resilience of those communities. Part of it is making sure that we are setting up structures, as the emergency management minister is doing, to make sure that we can manage these incidents when they occur. And part of it is thinking ahead about how the Australian government might be called on to help these communities.

The bill that is before the House today will make sure that we can get payments to people quickly, because what we know is that Australian government support is all well and good but, if it comes six or eight or 15 weeks down the track, it does create issues for families. We need to get money into the hands of people when they desperately need it, and this bill will help the parliament do that.

Debate adjourned.