Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023. Few bills of this parliament affect my electorate more than this one. During my lifetime, we've had four major floods in my electorate, including a flood in 1974 that was eight feet over my parents' house. While I've been the federal MP for Blair, we've had three major floods—in 2011, 2013 and 2022—not to mention the many bushfires that affect my regional and rural electorate in South-East Queensland, so I'm very pleased to speak on this bill.

The bill makes important amendments to the Social Security Act 1991 to introduce additional objective qualification criteria for the Australian government disaster recovery payment, which will support quicker decision-making under payment arrangements. The bill amends that piece of legislation to provide greater certainty in supporting automation processes and to ensure the timely payment of claims for the Australian government disaster recovery payment in the 2023-24 high-risk weather season and beyond. That's absolutely critical. The disaster recovery payment is a one-off payment to eligible people who are adversely affected by a major disaster.

The act sets out the circumstances in which a person qualifies for the payment. To qualify for the disaster recovery payment, an applicant must be adversely affected by a major disaster and be at least 16 years of age or receive a social security payment. The act provides alternative qualification criteria for the payment, which include a person who is an Australian resident, is a holder of certain visas as determined by the minister or is receiving a social security payment. Certain Australian citizens who are not Australian residents are covered. I do recall that, in 2011, New Zealanders qualified for this payment in my electorate, and there are many New Zealanders in South-East Queensland, let me tell you! Automatic assessment of claims for the payment based on objective criteria are expected to be processed in a matter of minutes or days instead of the weeks required to assess claims manually. Timely payment, when people are being so affected, is so critical. The amendments proposed by the bill provide objective criteria on which to assess payments and to ensure the timely processing and delivery of those payments. The purpose of the bill is to amend section 1061K to insert new qualification criteria to make the payments available to someone if they've spent a certain amount of time in Australia before a major disaster.

The weather in the coming year 2023-24 is likely to be characterised by severe weather events. A delivery of faster payments to those eligible is a critical element in our disaster preparedness response, so this bill requires urgent consideration, and I'm so pleased we're going ahead with it. It's really critical that communities are also very resilient in terms of preparation—everything from flood levees to making sure that there are controlled burns in regional areas, as well as making sure that we have the proper necessary release of water from places like Wivenhoe and Somerset dams. Local councils need to be prepared as well. For example, they need to have appropriate evacuation or community hubs, as has been said on many occasions in many reports.

Disasters will happen in our country. With climate change, weather conditions are becoming more extreme, and disasters will happen more frequently. There will be more extreme events, and that's the experience that we'll have in my home state of Queensland, where cyclones in the north impact South-East Queensland as well. This is a reality we can't ignore. We need to take action on climate change, and we need to be prepared as much as we possibly can. That's why this government is doing everything we can in terms of the disaster ready fund. I'm pleased we had projects done and paid for, and projects committed to in my electorate, such as the Dingyarra Street flood mitigation project in Toogoolawah. I thank the Somerset Regional Council for that. There are also other projects supporting private sector managed retreat of at-risk settlements around Ipswich and elsewhere in South-East Queensland. That will be a project which will trial a managed retreat system as well.

These things are important. The legislation before this Chamber is absolutely critical. The recovery payment, for the information of people, consists of $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child, and it is delivered by Services Australia. It really is about the purchase of essential items like food for a family, replacing damaged household items, clothing, school items or even toys for children who've lost their cherished possessions. It's designed to fund whatever is needed in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster, and to help families to recover. I can't describe how important these payments are to those who have been flooded and who've lost everything.

The use of automation will allow someone to enter their information to claim a payment, and a computer will check that information within limitations or business rules. If the information provided doesn't meet a business rule, then the claims can be assessed manually. I can't stress how important that is, because, in many cases, people are not technologically savvy, they are not digitally aware, they've lost their mobile phone, computers or laptops, so it is important things are dealt with manually as well. Not meeting the business rules doesn't mean someone is not eligible or doesn't qualify for the payment. Everyone's circumstances are unique. Every flood is different, and every person who is flood affected has different circumstances. If someone doesn't meet the streamlined automation rules, their situation can be considered in a manual way, against discretionary criteria.

This bill is really, really important, and that's why we're committed to improving the way we can deliver this essential assistance. The automation was originally introduced for the disaster recovery payment back in January 2022, and while it has been used to deliver payments after the Queensland and New South Wales floods, an assessment of the business rules identified risks in the application of discretionary decision-making criteria. When these issues were identified, the automation of recovery payments was paused. It's important for this automation to be reactivated before the commencement, as I say, of the high-risk weather season.

Services Australia advised that without automation, the processing time of recovery payments after significant events could blow out to five weeks or more. That's totally unacceptable. It will have a terrible impact on people. This is contrasted with the potential for automated processing times to be reduced to 20 minutes or less. Last financial year, Services Australia processed 1.6 million disaster recovery claims in a population of 26½ million. It goes to show how important this particular bill is for Australians.

These disasters take an enormous toll on people. It affects them physically, emotionally, psychologically and financially. Communities have been destroyed, homes and lives lost—and I've seen that on so many occasions in my electorate. This government will support people, and it's important that governments do so in the aftermath of disasters, to ensure the recovery of these communities. The disaster recovery payment offers a helping hand to people straight after a disaster. The bill requires urgent attention because the government support is absolutely critical and has to be effective. Six or eight weeks is far too long for most families to wait. These measures will get the disaster recovery payment to people who need it most and do it quickly. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023, and I speak on it as a local member who has seen firsthand the absolute destruction and devastation from recent natural disasters. We've had the Black Summer bushfires, which tore through large sections of the Calare electorate and, then, in November last year, we had the storm and flood event that devastated areas across the Cabonne Shire and the Wellington district as well. Tragically, lives were lost in those awful and devastating hours around the storm and flood waters hitting Eugowra. We've also had devastating bushfires in the Hill End region of the Calare electorate which struck earlier this year. So the people of Central West New South Wales are sadly very well acquainted with natural disaster and the tragedy that surrounds those awful events.

I support the bill because anything that facilitates the speedier dispensing of disaster assistance is very welcome. This bill relates to the disaster recovery payment, and I think that it is—

Sitting suspended from 16 : 40 to 16 : 51

As I was saying, I support this legislation because it facilitates the faster and more efficient dispensing of the disaster recovery payment, which is very important. But I do have to say, with respect to our disaster-hit communities in Central West of New South Wales, the rollout of disaster support has been disgracefully slow and is still not where it should be. Whilst the disaster recovery payment was issued when those storm and flood events hit Cabonne in the Central West of New South Wales, the back home grants, for example, which are where the larger sums of money came, didn't happen until just before Christmas. Those storm and flood events hit in the middle of November, on 13 and 14 November, and it took until Christmas to actually get meaningful support out to the Central West. We had press conference after press conference, concerned walk-through after concerned walk-through by various politicians, and that crucial support was delayed and delayed.

The reality is that the Central West of New South Wales has still not received the same level of disaster support that the Northern Rivers of New South Wales has had. We certainly don't begrudge the Northern Rivers any level of support and assistance which they have received. However, the truth remains that the devastation which occurred in the Central West of New South Wales was equal if not greater to that which the Northern Rivers experienced.

I spent a lot of time with emergency services personnel on the ground in the aftermath of the storm and floods in Eugowra. Those emergency services personnel who worked on both the Northern Rivers and Eugowra floods said that, even though the community of Eugowra is smaller, the level of destruction in Eugowra was actually greater; it was in a more concentrated area and there was a higher level of destruction in Eugowra. Yet Eugowra has still not received the same level of support. As I said, we don't begrudge the Northern Rivers a single penny that they have received, but we seek equal treatment in the Central West of New South Wales. We seek equal treatment in the form of the home buyback and retrofit scheme, which also includes home raising. That is a scheme which has had hundreds of millions of dollars committed to it, and we haven't seen a penny of it in the Central West of New South Wales. It could make a real difference to our area, but we have seen none of that funding. It's a disgrace. The Community Assets Program, which would help our councils get back on their feet and get their infrastructure back in shape, has not been made available to local councils in our area. How could that possibly be? How could you possibly have some councils, in one part of the disaster-hit state, being treated better than councils in other parts of the state that have experienced similar disasters?

Our communities have still not had access to the Northern Rivers Commercial Property Return to Business Support Grant program, which helps local landlords get their buildings back in shape, and if you walk through places like Molong, you will see shopfronts that are still shelves because there has been no assistance and no support. It's the same with homeowners who have, in many cases, invested in places like Eugowra and have had properties, which they rent out, wiped away. How could it possibly be that in this modern Australia of 2023, instead of actually fixing storm- and flood-hit infrastructure, we just close roads?

The Nyrang Creek Bridge between Canowindra and Eugowra is still closed, because the bridge is a wreck. There have been accidents on that road and there was recently a tragic fatality on that road. How can it be that instead of committing the funding needed to fix that road, we just close it? Saxa Road, between Wellington and Dunedoo, is closed because the storm- and flood-hit infrastructure along it is in a wrecked-out state; it's disgraceful. There doesn't seem to be any money to fix it. The Duke of Wellington Bridge in Wellington, one of the key arteries linking both sides of the river, and the key artery between Wellington and Dubbo and the rest of western New South Wales, is still a flood-hit wreck. Again, it's closed; there's no funding in sight for it. It beggars belief that in modern Australia this could be happening.

I believe both sides of politics are to be blamed for this neglect, and it is a wilful neglect. There is blame on the part of the previous Liberal and National state government for not activating this disaster assistance when they had the opportunity. This disaster assistance was dangled like a bag of cash on a fishing pole in front of our residents and then cruelly yanked away before the last state election. There is blame to be apportioned to the federal coalition for not putting pressure on their state colleagues, particularly in the National Party. They're all, in this state, members of the New South Wales National Party, and there was not sufficient pressure brought to bear on the state National Party or the coalition to deliver that disaster assistance. There is blame to be apportioned to the federal Nationals for only taking recent interest in our disaster-hit communities. It's a three-hour drive up that road to get to the Cabonne shire, yet it has taken them months, almost a year, to visit our area. That in itself is a disgrace. There is blame to be apportioned to the current New South Wales government for not activating this disaster assistance sooner, and there is blame to be apportioned to the current federal government for, similarly, not putting enough pressure on their state colleagues to activate this disaster assistance.

The New South Wales emergency services minister recently came to our electorate—he came to Eugowra—and I give him great credit for that. I understand that New South Wales is in a difficult financial position; we all understand that. I said to the minister, 'Even though funding is hard to find, you need to find funding for this.' I've worked with the Minister for Emergency Services in the New South Wales parliament. I have a lot of faith in his abilities to deliver, and I'm hoping that he will do that, because I know he is a very decent person. I know he will do his best. But we need him to deliver. I spoke to the federal Minister for Emergency Management on the weekend about this issue. I asked him to do everything he could to pressure his New South Wales colleagues and to bring home to them how important delivering this relief actually is. I would urge both the federal government and the New South Wales government to get this assistance moving.

It can't possibly be that in New South Wales you have two classes of emergency and disaster relief for different parts of the state, both of which have been devastated by natural disasters. It is a disgrace that this funding and these programs have not been made available to our area. For as long as that injustice stands, I will be bringing it to the attention of the House and calling it out. I will be calling out the wanton neglect that our residents have experienced and the disrespect which they have been the subject of from the major political parties in not delivering this relief. I will be highlighting the fact that the recovery process and the reconstruction of the Central West has been made much more difficult because of this abject failure to properly deliver disaster assistance. This is a gross injustice, and it needs to be made right.

All members of the current federal government and the New South Wales government need to be aware that this issue will not go away, and that the residents of our area are very angry about their treatment. As I said, there is plenty of blame to go around, including for the abject failure of the NSW Liberals and Nationals to actually deliver this relief rather than holding press conference after press conference, as we've seen all too much of over the months in recent times. We are now approaching 12 months since the storm and floods hit Eugowra, and there's still no sign of this funding. We're up to the anniversary.

The other area which also needs support is Hill End. In March this year the Hill End area was devastated by bushfires, yet we still have not had the $75,000 special disaster grants released for our area. Again, I've spoken to the New South Wales Minister For Emergency Services and asked him to have another look at it. He's undertaken to do that—again, to his credit. But, again, this is something that the previous coalition government in New South Wales could have activated straightaway but did not. Again, it's a case of the residents of our area feeling forgotten. This can't be allowed to stand. This neglect cannot be allowed to stand. This injustice cannot be allowed to stand.

I again urge all levels of government, federal and New South Wales, to do everything they can and to find the money and the funds to activate this disaster assistance. The anger in our area is palpable, and we will not be letting this go.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I serve notice that we're going to move an amendment to the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023 that will go after Qantas. I speak with authority here. My family were one of the original investors. Qantas received $1.57 billion in compensation for the disaster which was the disease outbreak, which was called COVID. They received $1.57 billion. In that period of time, the CEO of Qantas has personally received $22 million exit packages and bonuses and wages of an estimated $125 million. If we are handing out disaster packages and if we are not monitoring, then someone can get away with one hell of a lot of money. While we've chased people in my electorate around because they had 50 cattle die instead of 100 cattle, we did absolutely nothing about a bloke at a company getting away with $1 billion plus.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Kennedy, are you speaking to an amendment to the motion for the second reading?

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am putting forward that we will attempt to amend the bill so we can address the problem created that I am outlining here. This is a bill about improving services during disasters. I represent North Queensland, and we are cyclone prone and flood prone. Where I come from—which is an area of a thousand kilometres by a thousand kilometres: North Queensland's midwest—the soil seals over once we get two inches of rain, and we get massive flooding. We have characteristics in North Queensland that make us very, very prone to disasters of various types. Three of the towns in the electorate I represent get over 100 inches of annual rainfall. That is an average. That means that some years we get 300 inches of rain.

I want to name the people in this company, Qantas, that got $1.57 billion in handouts from the government because of COVID. In that same period of time, they paid out huge amounts of money to senior executives and paid bonuses and wages estimated at over $125 million, to quote but one example. On the board of Qantas is Richard Goyder, Maxine Brenner, Jacqueline Hey and Belinda Hutchinson. We are releasing their names to the media. This company—and God bless the Transport Workers Union who took the pictures—had employees sleeping on concrete with a blanket over them. They were baggage handlers. These people on the board did absolutely nothing about the man in charge, nor did this place do anything to call them to account. This place—the ALP and the LNP—sold Qantas. My forebears, like many other people who live in inland North Queensland, put in a lot of money to get a little airline going to service us and provide much-needed air services.

I'll quote two examples of that need. There were three Katter brothers. My father was one of them. He died because he would not jump the queue when we had the airline strike on. By the time he got to Brisbane, it was too late; the cancer had got away, and he died. If he had jumped the queue or been able to get on an aeroplane during that strike, he would have survived. So he died as a result of the tyranny of distance. His brother Norman was hurt. He had a rugby league injury. My family are very proud of their association with rugby league. By the time the Qantas plane got back from Longreach to Cloncurry and got to Brisbane, it was too late. If the plane had been in Cloncurry, he would have survived. So two of the three Katter brothers died on account of the tyranny of distance, which has been one of the greatest tyrants that this nation has ever had to confront. We put our hands in pockets and put up money that we could ill afford to get this company going. The government sold it so they could buy their way through an election. They sold the national passenger carrier.

I named the people on the Qantas board because I want it to be on the public record who they are. We don't want everyone running around just blaming the CEO. Who was the board that kept him there through this period of time? It was used to enable us—people subject to the tyranny of distance—to overcome that tyrant. The costs of going from Longreach, Mount Isa or Cloncurry to anywhere is absolutely prohibitive, and yet they're paying the CEO $20 million a year. If a tiny bit of that money came back to the people that founded Qantas, maybe we would be running this country a hell of a lot better than we're running it at the present moment.

As for the free marketeers and the ALP and the LNP, the founder of the ALP, 'Red Ted' Theodore, would turn in his grave and spit upon the people that call themselves ALP today because he believed in creating industries to provide work and a rich income for the people. He founded the great trade union movement in this country, as well as the great labour movement in this country. I'm very proud of the Country Party, which I belonged to. We were in the ALP, as was Kevin Rudd's family. The big split happened, and then we became members of the Country Party, but we took all of our principles with us.

I'll go back to the issue of disaster relief. That disaster relief passed out $1.57 billion to a company who is paying its CEO $20 million plus every year, when he's had baggage handlers that he has offshored sleeping on concrete, according to the aeronautical engineers union. They've told me that he has offshored thousands of jobs overseas in the vitally important aeronautical engineering industry. He has put fares up in regional Australia to a point where no-one can afford to fly, and this government hands him out $1.57 billion, with not one single codicil upon it, saying: 'Hold on, mate. If you were making big profits during the COVID period, which you did, we want the money back.' I'm not saying you pay it back straight away. I'm saying you pay it back over 10 or 20 years. The people of Australia have to bring to account Richard Goyder, Maxine Brenner, Jacqueline Hey and Belinda Hutchinson, who sat on their backsides and watched this man take $120 million out of this country. I'm not even talking about him utilising his power in this organisation to affirm his own proclivities. I will leave it at that.

The intervention in the contract for Israel Folau is one of the recent disgraces of this country, where a man was persecuted for his Christian convictions. Whether you agree with them or whether you don't, when we move into an area where if you disagree with someone's convictions you start destroying them, we are living in a fascist state. I deeply regret that the people of Victoria have to live in a fascist state, but they put people in jail that disagree with them—on a fairly regular basis, actually. I speak with authority because my own Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen was inclined to some of these proclivities at times, and he had to be reined in. It was very difficult to rein him in at times, so I know what fascism is all about, I can tell you. I would say that, on every occasion, we were able to rein him in, but there is no-one reining in the fascists running Victoria. On the contrary, I stand behind him.

I'm moving off the point. The point here is that we are handing out money to corporations with no real control or oversight of that money—that a person can walk out of this country having been paid $120 million. During COVID, they got a $1.6 billion handout, and there's no redress. There's no answering to a government. Is there any government in Australia? A government is there to provide essential services, and, to move from point A to point B, water and electricity are essential services. They've corporatised the water, they've privatised the electricity and they've sold off the transport industry. You can be very proud of yourselves, Mr ALP and Mr LNP.

I have published a history book—a moderate bestseller, if I may say so myself. It was launched to over a thousand people by Kevin Rudd, no less, and Barrie Cassidy in Melbourne. As an historian, I know the verdict that will be passed on those who were the ALP and LNP members of parliament during this period of time, when this was done in Australia, when every single one of our essential services was privatised into a corporation whose duty was to maximise profits. It was not to provide an essential service to the people of Australia, but to make profits—huge profits, personally, for those involved!

We're coming back to address this issue again, and we'll provide details on how much money Richard Goyder, Maxine Brenner, Jacqueline Hey and Belinda Hutchinson received during this period, and whether they're going to give any of that money that they got, for COVID, back to the people of Australia.

Until this place realises that it has a responsibility to provide essential services, then we are associated with a parliament that does not govern Australia, but governs in the interests of the rich and powerful. The sharebrokers playing their little stock market games in Sydney are the ones who run this country, and they slither out of university with two degrees and then they slither into boardrooms and slither into this parliament!

In the Labor Party that I belonged to as a little kid, Paddy Behan was local president and he was a shearer. The deputy president worked on the railway. The secretary—that was my father—had a little business in Cloncurry. And that was who the ALP were. There are no ALP people left in these areas because the ALP sold off the railways. They sold off Qantas, but they also sold off the railways and sacked 7½ thousand men and women from the railways in Queensland.

I don't know how many were sacked with Qantas, but I know that Qantas received $1.7 billion in COVID payments. We are here today to speak about the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023, and what the government appears to be doing here is a good thing to do. Unfortunately, and sadly for them, it highlights the fact that that money was given. I'm using Qantas as an example, but I will bet that there were a hundred other companies that similarly profited. They didn't need the money—they didn't actually want the money—but they got the money. I've learnt from my 51 or 52 years in parliament that when there is something that I don't understand, something shonky is going down; and a lot of shonky stuff has gone down here.

Before I finish—we had a very big flood. It concerned a tiny little town called Burketown and the surrounding areas. It was a terrible flood. One of the Booth family—like me, with various antecedents such as First Australians in the family tree—lost all of his cattle. The compensation he got was ridiculous; it was a laugh. The Tirranna roadhouse—which is Burketown, to some degree, these days—had received nothing at all from the government when I last spoke to them, which, admittedly, was a fair few weeks ago now. When we had floods in Julia Creek, former prime minister Morrison went to Julia Creek, and there was $1.2 billion handed out in compensation to the people that had suffered great losses. That has not happened at Burketown. If the people had been white, it would have happened. If it was a— (Time expired)

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023, and I do so on behalf of my communities in the Gilmore electorate that have a lot of experience with natural disasters. The 2019-22 bushfires saw 72 per cent of the Shoalhaven burnt; 919 houses, facilities and outbuildings destroyed; and a further 455 damaged. There were 27,099 applications approved for the Australian government disaster recovery payment and an additional 10,597 applications for the additional payment for children. Together, these payments total $35.48 million. In Eurobodalla, 81 per cent of land was burnt; 1,472 houses, facilities and outbuildings were destroyed; and a further 603 were damaged. In the Eurobodalla, there were 15,820 applications approved for the disaster recovery payment and an additional 5,018 applications approved for the additional payment for children. Together, these payments total $19.78 million.

No-one can not be impacted by the Black Summer bushfires. Our local rural fire service firefighters and those firefighters who came from near and far are our true heroes, as are the many emergency services and voluntary organisations, like our police, SES, ambulance, fire and rescue, marine rescue, surf life saving clubs, and many local businesses, organisations and individuals that helped. But people needed urgent financial support. When your power goes off, your food rots. When you've lost all your clothes, school items and food, the need for assistance is real.

I advocated quickly for the disaster declaration, which kickstarted the opening of applications for the Australian government disaster recovery payment. The payment, delivered by Service Australia, pays $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child. It's meant to be immediate financial assistance to help overcome some of the financial burdens. My staff and I did everything we could to advertise this payment and to support people with the application process. I thank our Services Australia staff who worked around the clock to support people. But there were definitely some system problems, and people contacted my office for help.

When a constituent contacted me in disbelief that her application had been rejected because her area supposedly wasn't bushfire affected, she asked for help. It was a simple problem that the town name wasn't recognised as part of the Shoalhaven disaster-declared area, something we were able to fix. There were many examples of where people have lived and worked for years and contributed to our communities but, because of the criteria, were ineligible for the disaster recovery payment.

It is upon us all to improve the system for the disaster recovery payment, and this is what this bill will do. This bill seeks to amend the Social Security Act 1991 to introduce additional objective qualification criteria for the Australian government disaster recovery payment to support quicker decision-making. The bill supports faster and more efficient assessment of claims for those who have been adversely impacted by a major disaster. This is achieved by providing objective criteria on which to assess claims for the recovery payment to support increased use of automatic decision-making. The use of automation allows a person to enter their information to claim a payment and a computer will check that information within limitations or business rules. If the information provided does not meet a business rule, it will fall out of the automatic decision-making system and the claim will be assessed manually.

We know that everyone's circumstances are unique. So, if someone does not meet the streamlined automation rules as introduced by the bill, a person's circumstances can be considered manually against a number of discretionary criteria. And if the information provided meets all business rules, a person can receive payment quickly—ideally, within days as opposed to weeks or months. This will be a welcome relief to people right across Gilmore. In the Shoalhaven and Eurobodalla, we went on to have a further 10 disaster declarations since the fires, mainly floods and storms. The Kiama local government area has also had four flood or storm disaster declarations, with 8,970 approved applications for the Australian government disaster recovery payment totalling $10 million.

Natural disasters like bushfires, floods and storms are here to stay. It is imperative that we are prepared as much as possible. It is important we get these changes in place quickly. Services Australia needs to be able to process claims quickly during disaster responses. These changes from this bill will help achieve that.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last few years, thousands of people in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains have, probably for the first time in their lives, had to apply for the Australian government disaster recovery payment. I know I had to do it for the first, and only, time a decade ago. You do the application in a total blur because you're only eligible if you've been through a massive natural disaster—a bushfire, a flood, a major storm, a cyclone. You apply in a traumatised state, and, even though you might sound coherent to the outside world, inside you're thinking you've possibly just lost every possession you ever owned, including your home, or at the very least you have no idea what is salvageable and what isn't.

The disaster recovery payment provides a short-term one-off financial assistance to eligible Australians. It simply offers a helping hand in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster. The payment is $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per eligible child, and is delivered by Services Australia. It helps a little, to go towards the purchase of some of those really essential items you need right from the start. You need clean undies, toiletries, really basic clothing, school items, work gear, towels, sheets and probably a pillow. Whatever is needed in the immediate aftermath of an event, it's there to be used to help Australians and their families recover.

The Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains have had multiple disaster declarations in the last few years. In the Hawkesbury in 2019-20, in the bushfires, 10,000 adults and children were eligible for the disaster payment; that was worth $9.5 million. In the Blue Mountains it was 14,000 adults and children, and it was a $12 million payment that went to those individuals $1,000 at a time or $400 at a time. We've also had storms and floods in the Hawkesbury. In 2021 the floods and storms led to 6,400 people being eligible for $7 million of payments. In the March 2022 floods 17,000 people were eligible, and it was a $19.5 million payment that helped people get through the immediate aftermath. In the June 2022 floods 16,000 people were eligible, and it was an $18.8 million payment to support those community members. For the Blue Mountains in the 2021 storms 3,000 applications were approved at a cost of $4 million. The March 2022 storms saw 11,000 applications, resulting in $13 million of payments. The June 2022 storms saw 8,000 applications with payments of $9 million.

We saw the huge demand, through all of that, that was put on staff at Services Australia, who were largely manually processing many of those claims. This legislation, the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023, is about providing objective criteria on which to assess claims for disaster recovery payments. We can support increased use of automatic decision-making so the online assessment process is faster and more efficient, meaning people will get payments within days rather than weeks. The use of automation allows a person to enter their information to claim a payment, and a computer will check that information within certain limitations or business rules. If the information provided does not meet a business rule, it will move out of the automatic decision-making system and the claim will be assessed manually. Not meeting those business rules does not necessarily mean a person won't qualify for the payment; everybody's circumstances are unique. No-one will have their claim for a disaster recovery payment rejected through automation. What will happen is the manual assessment against a number of discretionary criteria will come into play.

It's really important we have these changes in place before the next high-risk weather season, which is virtually upon us, formally starting on 1 October. Services Australia needs to have tools to process claims quickly. This bill will help achieve that for claims that meet the qualification criteria introduced by the bill. For Australian citizens or a person on a certain visa who has spent a particular amount of time in Australia before a major disaster, or for people who care for a child or children adversely affected by a major disaster, this may well help speed up the claims process. We all hope we won't need to use it, but we all know disasters will continue to happen right across the country. This bill will provide the government with a clearer ability to quickly and efficiently support communities affected by disasters, which is our government's absolute priority, particularly when the scale of disaster is beyond the capacity of a state or territory government.

I commend this bill to the House.

Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleague the member for Macquarie, as well as the previous speaker, the member for Gilmore and even the member for Calare who spoke earlier. They have all dealt with significant natural disasters in their electorates, and they know that we can do much, much better when it comes to disaster recovery payments. I am so proud that the Albanese Labor government is taking this issue seriously. When our communities go through natural disasters, we do not need to reinvent the recovery wheel. What we should be doing is listening to the lived experience of communities across this country, and that's exactly what the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023 is about. It's exactly the experience that I know the member for Macquarie has expressed in this place before and directly to the minister, as I have as well.

It's incredibly important that we make it faster and easier to get immediate support and access to disaster recovery payments. Natural disasters are devastating enough without people having to jump through a variety of hoops to get a disaster payment which, effectively, buys them tomorrow's clothes. That's how simple this is. I've been on the ground with my community during nine declared natural disasters when I was the mayor of the Bega Valley Shire. You are standing with people who are experiencing one of the worst days of their lives, when all of their possessions are taken from them. So many regional Australians don't have the access to the services that our city counterparts do. It has taken a Labor government to make sure that we rectify this issue for regional Australia .

The passage of this bill will support regional and rural people to recover when disasters strike—and they will. The amendments that we are talking about will deliver urgent financial assistance to communities when time is of the essence. In my electorate, the Black Summer bushfires destroyed or damaged nearly 800 homes in the Eurobadalla Shire, nearly 600 homes in the Bega Valley, 240 homes in the Snowy Valleys, 80 homes in Queanbeyan-Palerang and around 160 homes in the Snowy Monaro Shire. The trauma of that experience for our communities and other communities around the country is ongoing. It doesn't go away when the political tourism leaves or when the cameras stop. I hope we never see another summer like the Black Summer, but we hope for the best and our communities prepare for the worst.

We want to make sure that applications to Services Australia are processed quickly. We need to put in these changes before the next high-risk weather season, which formally starts in only a few short weeks on 1 October. Faster and more efficient assessment of online claims for disaster recovery payments will be delivered through automation of parts of the assessment process. Our government is committed to improving the way in which we deliver that assistance to people, and this bill takes that process a step further. It provides the government with a clearer ability to quickly and efficiently support communities affected by disasters, when the scale of the disaster is beyond the capacity of any one state or territory government.

Last financial year alone, Services Australia processed over 1.6 million disaster recovery claims. I've seen firsthand what people do with that emergency funding, and we need to make sure that red tape gets out of the way so community members can deal with the next thing in front of them. As I said, for so many people, that is new clothes for the next day. The bill will make a practical difference for people who need faster recovery claims. This will allow a person to enter information in regard to a claim on a computer, and that information will be dealt with. Individual circumstances will still be considered with this new process, so that, if someone doesn't meet that streamlined criteria, their application will not be rejected. It will instead be considered manually, against a number of discretionary criteria. That's exactly what things like the bushfire royal commission recommended—a faster, more efficient disaster recovery system to deliver help to people. Critically, no-one will have their claim for a Disaster Recovery Payment rejected through automation.

The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment is just one of many support mechanisms that the Australian government provides to disaster affected communities. We know disasters happen across this country, and, with climate change, weather conditions will become more extreme and disasters will happen more frequently. It's a reality we can't ignore, and this is a practical step we must take to give credence to the lived experience of so many communities across this country who have asked for this help, and the Albanese government are delivering it.

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

Could I thank the members of the chamber who have made contributions to this debate. Everyone of them has been a really important one.

We just heard there from the member for Eden-Monaro, who has probably one of the best on-the-ground experiences of this problem. She told us that her community has experienced nine declared natural disasters in the period of time that she was the mayor of her local community. We heard, too, from the member for Macquarie. Those in the chamber will know that the member for Macquarie's community has struggled with fire and flood and storm damage, virtually relentless natural disasters, over a period of some years now, just in the time she's been in the parliament.

I thank the members who have contributed to the debate. I am enormously respectful of the commitment they show to their local communities and the leadership that we see them provide those communities when they are under these most distressing of circumstances. It's partly through the advocacy of these members that we bring forward to the parliament a bill that will assist families and communities when they are going through those dark periods recovering from natural disasters. The Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023 will amend the Social Security Act 1991 to ensure we can continue to support Australians when times are tough.

The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment will offer a helping hand in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster, and it has already assisted tens of thousands of impacted Australians in recent years. We heard the member for Eden-Monaro talk earlier about the immediacy of needs that people have when their entire livelihood has essentially been destroyed by a natural disaster. We are literally talking about how a family feeds the children and buys new clothes and shoes so that people have something to wear the next day. That is the sense of immediacy that's needed here, and we don't want to set up a payment system where people are waiting for months and months for the money that they very much deserve. So we are very focused on ensuring Australians have what they need when they are in that recovery period immediately after the event.

The amendments proposed in the bill will provide the government with great ability to quickly and efficiently support communities when the scale of disaster requires government assistance and beyond government assistance provided by state and territory governments.

It's not accidental that the bill is coming before a parliament at this particular period. We have the high-risk weather season formally starting on 1 October 2023. I've spoken to the parliament about the information that we have as a government and as a community about what this high-risk weather season is going to look like, and we need to share this information as far and wide as we can. What we know is that there are weather patterns coming our way that will be facilitating greater vulnerability to fire, greater vulnerability to storms and, in fact, this is the season that we have experienced since the Black Summer bushfires that is most dangerous for the country.

Of course, any government worth their salt is going to use the information that we have from the various scientific sources to make sure that we are preparing. The minister responsible for emergency services has been doing an enormous amount of work with state and territory governments and with people around the country to try to make sure we have what we need in place.

The members who spoke before me talked about the fact we are going to have natural disasters in our country. No politician should or would ever suggest otherwise. What's important for us is that we build that national resilience in our communities and that government is there to give a helping hand to people in the moment that they need it, and that is the intention of the bill before the parliament.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.