Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (2012 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2012. This bill seeks to implement a range of changes to the eligibility for certain income support payments as announced in the 2012-13 budget as well as make other amendments to child support legislation.

Schedule 1 of the bill seeks to extend the current income exemption for the Western Australian government's country age pension fuel card and the cost-of-living rebate scheme. The current exemption is due to expire on 30 June 2012 and the extension, due to run indefinitely from 1 July 2012, will ensure that people continue to enjoy the full benefit of the Western Australian government assistance without a reduction in their pension payments.

Schedule 2 seeks to narrow the timeframe for people who travel overseas while receiving particular income support and family payments. That is due to come into effect on 1 January 2013. The change will see the length of time that people can spend overseas while still receiving payments decrease from 13 weeks to six weeks. There are exemptions for this for age pension recipients and disability support pension recipients deemed by the department to have a severe or permanent disability and, as a result, no future work capacity. Individuals studying overseas as part of an approved Australian course are also exempt from this change. Likewise, the maximum basic rate of the service pension, disability pension and war widows pension paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs is not affected by this change.

Other social security payments, including the pension supplement, will be affected and recipients of the family tax benefit part A will continue to be paid for up to three years of temporary absence but the payment will reduce to only the base rate after six weeks absence from Australia.

In schedule 3, the amendments promoted by this bill mean that families with children aged over 18 who are not engaged in full-time education or vocational study are no longer eligible for the family tax benefit part A. Eligibility is extended for those children aged 18 and 19 who are full-time students to the end of the calendar year, after which time their families are no longer eligible. This reduction from the current threshold of 21 years of age will result in 43,000 teenagers losing their entitlement to this payment, with 53,000 families left without this support, which is vital. We know that cost-of-living pressures are bearing down on families and households. With the impending carbon tax, those will only be exacerbated. In fact, I cannot remember a time in my adult years when cost-of-living issues have been such a source of comment from members of the public. I hear them now in their capacity as my constituents. There will be more young people at home with mum and dad. Cost-of-living pressures will continue to rise. It is peculiar that this government, as the Australian public expresses concern about cost-of-living pressures, seems to be doing everything that it can to exacerbate those, whether through the carbon tax or through taking some forms of income support away from households. This government takes a perverse approach.

The bill also proposes some non-government amendments. Inequity in child support income testing for family tax benefit part A will be addressed. Individuals who collect child support privately will have their maintenance income test based on the individual's child support entitlement rather than restricting the family tax benefit part A to the base child rate when they do not collect the full child support entitlement. This will come into effect from 1 July 2012. As well as this, the bill amends the legislation to permit a percentage of care for child support and family tax benefit purposes to be based on the actual care of the child in certain circumstances of violence or unusual behaviour.

The bill also clarifies eligibility for the clean energy low-income supplement of a group of low-income families who would otherwise not benefit fully from the assistance required due to the impacts of the carbon tax. I guess it is good on one level that the bill clarifies eligibility for that supplement. But we on this side of the chamber think that there is a much better way to proceed, and that is to repeal the carbon tax. If there is no carbon tax then quite clearly as a matter of logic you do not need compensation. The government has spent a lot of time, effort and money promoting their clean energy low-income supplements, household assistance packages and schoolkid bonuses—a lot of money. But it has all been in an effort to try to mask the effects of the carbon tax and to try to distract people from the introduction of the carbon tax. Quite simply, if you do not have a tax you do not need the compensation and you certainly do not need those distractions.

I know the government also thinks there is a benefit in this massive public expenditure on advertising. If there is one lesson we learnt from our time in government—in fact there were probably many lessons we learnt from that time—it is that advertising campaigns on things such as Work Choices and to promote the policies of the government of the day actually do not have the desired effect. It annoys the public that you are spending money that could be better directed elsewhere. It also annoys them because you can really be reminding them of a policy that they do not particularly like. You might be trying to put the best gloss on it but in that endeavour you actually are reminding them of a policy they might not like. I do not think this government has learnt in office what we did when we were in office. They complained an awful lot about our expenditure on advertising and about the efficacy of that spending. They probably should have been quite happy about our spending because I think some of those advertising campaigns helped them more than they helped us. The lesson has been well learnt on our side and I think it also should be learnt on the other side that when you are spending taxpayers' money on advertising campaigns it should be for informational purposes. It should be to explain a policy. It should not be—