Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (4) and (5) on sheet 5193 together:

(4)    Schedule 1, page 7 (after line 19), before item 18, insert:

17A  Subsection 5(18) (and the heading)

Repeal the heading and the subsection, substitute:

Principal carer – a child may have more than one principal carer

      (18)    Where:

             (a)    a court orders that more than one parent has a significant proportion of responsibility for the care of a child; and

             (b)    the difference in percentage of responsibility for the care of a child between the two parents is 12% or less;

both parents must be treated for all purposes of this Act as a principal carer for the child.

(5)    Schedule 1, page 7 (after line 19), before item 18, insert:

17B  After subsection 5(19)

Insert:

   (19A)    Notwithstanding subsection (19), where a court orders that more than one parent has a significant proportion of responsibility for the care of a child and the difference in percentage of responsibility for the care of a child between the two parents is 12% or less, the Secretary must make a determination that each parent the subject of the court order is the principal carer of the child.

These amendments relate to a separate issue from that which we are talking about, but I am taking the opportunity to try to make some amendments to the act to address the significant problems that many people in the community are facing at the moment related to shared parenting, where the court orders that parents have shared equal parenting. Last year the government brought forward legislative changes to family law which were a source of major community concern and the subject of much debate in this place.

The bill required that the court, when considering issues around parenting, take as a starting point the concept of equal shared parenting. These changes are now law and people are anticipating that the outcome of the implementation of the legislation will be greater shared equal parenting, which means that separating couples will have fifty-fifty care, or close to it, of their children. However, under the Social Security Act the appointment of the principal carer is not consistent with this concept. Under the act only one parent is deemed to be the principal carer and therefore that person has fewer participation requirements and has access to things like medical benefits and other benefits that are available only to the principal carer. This is manifestly unfair to the parent who is not nominated as the principal carer.

We have children that are living with one parent for 50 per cent of the time and another parent for 50 per cent of the time. If both parents are income support recipients, only one gets the benefit of the principal carer provisions of the act. When the other parent has residency and care of the child, they do not have access to those provisions. They therefore have greater participation requirements under Welfare to Work. They do not have access to pharmaceutical benefits, healthcare cards and other things that are available to the principal carer. This seems to us to be unfair. When living with the parent who is not the principal carer, the child is in fact the one that suffers.

This amendment seeks to enable both parents to be nominated as the principal carer of the child so that the child has the same support and advantage when they are in either parent’s house instead of the situation that exists at the moment, where in one household the child gets the support provided by the principal carer provisions and in the other household they do not. It seems to the Greens that it is entirely inequitable and unjust that this situation has been allowed to develop. We support the concept of shared equal parenting. We were very concerned, as we articulated at the time, about some of the amendments that were made to the Family Law Act, but the fact is that those are now law. The Social Security Act should reflect the principles now held in family law—that is, shared equal parenting. Surely that means shared access to the principal carer provisions of the Social Security Act.