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

I move Greens amendment (8) on sheet 5193:

(8)    Schedule 1, item 50, page 11 (after line 27), after subsection 1228(3), add:

        (4)    Subsection (3) only applies in cases where:

             (a)    the primary income support payment is restored part way through the 8 week penalty period; or

             (b)    the person had undeclared income at least at the level of their normal income support entitlement.

This amendment relates to the restrictions on deductions of overpayments of benefits. This is specifically about the recovery of overpayments from what is a discretionary scheme which does not have a statutory basis, which we believe provides a number of problems. When the payment is discretionary and the parameters surrounding it are not explicit, it becomes very difficult to determine what is an overpayment. To address this problem, I am proposing an amendment to allow only for an overpayment to be collected in the following circumstances—that is, where the primary income support payment is restored part way through the eight-week non-payment period and where the client has undeclared income, at least at the level of their normal income support entitlement.

Under those circumstances, which are consistent with what was recommended by ACOSS in the Senate inquiry process into this bill, as I articulated in my speech in the second reading debate, the Greens have concerns that, while the other mechanisms of income support payment are obviously covered in the statutes, this one is not. It is a discretionary payment, and now we are putting in the legislation provision for overpayments of that discretionary payment to be collected. We are moving an amendment to clarify and to put parameters around the manner in which and the circumstances in which an overpayment of financial case management payments can be collected.