Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

As I outlined in my second reading contribution, notwithstanding our concerns about aspects of the system, Labor do support this aspect of the bill; therefore we are not able to support the Greens or Democrat amendments. That is on the basis that we do agree that the principle that overpayment should be recovered is a sensible one. We have made some suggestions to the government about improvements in the transparency of this regime and the review mechanisms associated with it. We would take a different approach in government to how these matters were dealt with in terms of transparency, but there is a general principle here that overpayments ought to be recovered.

In relation to the Greens amendment, I understand they have picked up some suggestions from ACOSS. I make the point that the ACOSS submission in relation to this bill did not indicate that the circumstances outlined in the Greens amendment were exhaustive; rather, it stated that circumstances suited to the recovery of overpayments included those specified. We believe there are a range of circumstances which might warrant recovery of overpayments in addition to those outlined in the Greens amendment—for example, if the amount should not have been paid, the person did not fit any eligibility criteria for either financial case management or the original income support payment, or if the amount paid through FCM was greater than their entitlements.

Labor believe there needs to be a compliance system with appropriate penalties that encourage people to meet their obligations. However, as I have said previously in this place and publicly, we consider the eight-week non-payment penalty to be simply too harsh. One important factor is that it does not encourage people to make amends. Even if they are meeting their obligations after being breached, they are still unable to get their income support, which seems to fly in the face of the notion that penalties should try and encourage appropriate behaviour. So in those circumstances we are not in a position to support either the Greens or the Democrat amendment, given the principle that overpayments, we believe, ought to be recovered. However, I make it very clear that we do think there is a very strong case for much better transparency in this system and a much better system of review.

Question negatived.