Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Prime Minister for Social Inclusion) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Brown for those comments. Senator Siewert actually nails the issue. We are stuck between a rock and a hard place here. This bill is about amending an anomaly that was put in place in the changes in September 2007. The people, who we now know will be far fewer than 22,000, are those who have come into the system since September 2007. So it is not a hugely entrenched group of people, if I can say that in the most sympathetic of terms. One of the things the grandfathering clause would do is to create a fair, fairer and fairest system, which is hugely problematic for us simply because we are here to close a loophole which creates inconsistent treatment across the social security legislation. This could have the unintended consequence of creating further anomalies further down the track as we continue to adjust the social security system to make it fairer. There could be an unintended consequence of trapping people into this grandfathering situation and create another group of people who would be treated differently as further changes were made. On that basis, we are not able to support the grandfathering amendment of the Greens, but we thank them for trying to work out a resolution to what is a sticky situation.