Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Minister. I did not want to embarrass you in any way, but I did actually indicate some time ago that I was going to ask these questions. I am not satisfied, and it is the sort of thing that we would have in the committee stage for a bill which did not go to a committee. This is how we used to do it before 1988. We did not have committees on legislation. We would take maybe sometimes four days to do a family law bill. I am not being difficult; I am just wanting to make sure. All I want is to be assured that I can tell somebody who asks me this question that they are not going to suddenly find that, when the person goes onto the age pension, the trust set up as it is becomes an asset. I had not been assured of that.

My other question concerns the criteria for being eligible to have one of these trusts. I do not know which page it is, but it is clause 1209M, ‘Beneficiary requirements’, subclause (2). It says:

(2) If the principal beneficiary has reached 16 years of age—

and it goes through a number of things; the first one is that you have to be eligible for a disability pension—

(ii) be receiving invalidity service pension under Part III of the Veterans’ Entitlements Act; or

(iii) be receiving income support supplement granted on the ground set out in subparagraph 45A(1)(b)(iii) of the Veterans’ Entitlements Act ...

That is fine. It then says:

(c) the beneficiary must have a disability as a result of which he or she is not working, and has no likelihood of working, for a wage that is at or above the relevant minimum wage.

I think that is fine. A parent of a disabled son said to me that he has a friend with a disabled son who is working in a business where they have taken on the role of making sure that that person is being looked after. They are paying him a minimum wage but with supervision from some of his coworkers as a community business partnership. I just want to make sure that, if that is happening and the person is genuinely not able to manage their own affairs yet able to do a menial task to attract a minimum wage, they are not excluded.

I think the important thing with these is that we do not want people to be able to drive a truck through them. We also do not want people to have to go through extensive assessment to get in. That has been the challenge that the advisory committee had. I think we need to look at clause 1209M(2)(c) because, if there are people working in firms where their coworkers are assisting them to actually get up to a minimum wage and they would not be able to get that anywhere else, we do not want to see them cut off. If they have been in a special school and have gone into open employment, they would miss out. The minister has indicated that he will look at this very carefully and this is not the end of the story. I do not think it should be the end of the story. But I do not think we should have it so broad that we have people getting in and being able to have this trust when they really are not the sorts of people for whom this is designed. This is designed for people who have limited testamentary capacity or no testamentary capacity at all. I have some concerns about (b), which states:

(b)

the beneficiary must:

(i)

have a disability that would, if the person had a sole carer, qualify the carer for carer payment or carer allowance; or

(ii)

be living in an institution ... or group home in which care is provided for people with disabilities, and for which funding is provided (wholly or partly) under an agreement, between the Commonwealth, the States and the Territories, nominated by the Secretary under subsection (3) ...

Some of the parents want to provide privately. So their children may be in a group home for which they have contributed money out of their son or daughter’s trust. The children may be in an institution or a group home not funded by CSTDA. We might be able to get around this by giving them a couple of dollars funding and make it fit the bill. That is not the way I would like to see it happen, but that might be a way of doing it. There is always another way to skin a cat.

Qualifying for carer payment or carer allowance is an issue for the following reason. You may have a moderate disability—you may have Down syndrome, for example—and you can undertake activities of daily living, such as getting up, having a shower, feeding yourself, getting yourself to the business service and maybe even getting to the footy with your mates, but you cannot manage more than $10 and your parents may get the ticket so you can go. The carer allowance assessment indicates that you have to have one-on-one care for 20 hours a week. Those carers do not give one-on-one care for 20 hours a week. They cook dinner and the young person eats it, but that is not counted as caring for the person in that sense. They are part of the family; they have done it for 20 or 30 years.

I had one case just recently where somebody knew this was coming up, saw the legislation and tried three times to get the carer allowance. Their son was in a special school and is now working in a business service, but they did not qualify for carers allowance, with all the help from Centrelink. On the third occasion—after three visits to the doctor and three visits to Centrelink—they qualified for the carer allowance. This parent is relatively young—in his 50s or 60s—and he said: ‘What happens when I’m 83? I can’t go to the doctor three times and I can’t get down to Centrelink three times.’ I pointed this out to the minister when I saw the legislation and we looked at how we could amend this. We all know it is not easy because, with anything you do, people will try to drive a truck through it. I have said that we need to look at a cluster of other things that you have to do that would qualify you. If you have been in a special school and you are in a business service, you are not high functioning and you would qualify for this with the intent that the cabinet had and with the intent in the legislation.

So rather than trying to draft an amendment that may mean that people could drive a truck through it, I raised with the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs that it may not allow some disabled people, for whom we have really aimed this, to benefit from the trust proposal. As a result, the minister has given me an undertaking to review these particular provisions and, if necessary, to introduce an amendment when the parliament resumes in August. I am conscious of the need for families to start preparing. They are very keen about this and they want the bill to be in by 1 September. I do not want them to think that this is the end.

All of us in this chamber could say: ‘Yes, you’re in. You’re in. You’re in. You’re out. You’re in,’ and we would be 99 per cent right, but to try and work out how you do that in a way that is not complicated, that is fair and that does not put onerous burdens on people to get into the system is quite challenging. I know that the advisory committee thought about it long and hard. I would ask that senators listen and talk to families who are planning to use this to see if they have any hurdles that are too high for them to jump. It behoves us to make sure that the hurdles are not so high that they get eliminated.

I know that a lot of parents whose sons and daughters are in business services or are being supported through an open employment program will read this Hansard, because it will be circulated. I want to tell them that my office will be available if they want to raise any concerns that they have and I will bring them to the minister’s attention. We need to see this as a work in progress. It is very new, but it is better to go slowly than to have people misuse it. That is the aim of it: to make it relatively easy for those who should get it but not easy for people who should not get it. I want to note on the public record that the minister has made that commitment.