Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The family tax benefit A payment is a payment provided to families to support their family budgets. If we know one thing in this place, we know that family budgets are already under attack by the Abbott government. We have seen the Abbott government wanting to put on a tax when you are sick and a tax if you need specialist care. We have seen the increase in fuel excise, which has hit people in the hip pocket. We have seen the cuts to how pensions are going to be determined into the future. We have seen massive cuts to health, and we have seen an attack on education in this country like we have never seen before. And yet we have this bill before us from Senator Leyonhjelm which further seeks to put a harsh and unrealistic burden onto medium- and low-income families. That is who is being attacked here.

If you look at the website, you will see that, to be eligible for family tax benefit A, you have to have at least a dependent child or a secondary student under 20. You have to be not receiving a pension, a payment or a benefit such as youth allowance. You need to be providing for your child 35 per cent of the time. And, of course, there is already a means test. So this is not like the Prime Minister's gold Paid Parental Leave scheme, which will benefit the wealthy in the country; this is a targeted payment to families who need that additional support to buy school uniforms, to buy books, to enable their kids to play sport on the weekend or to supplement the family budget. This is what family tax benefit A does.

I cannot believe that a senator in this place would introduce a bill that further reduces that entitlement—that further penalises Australian families. This bill is designed to tighten the income test, which is already fairly low. Family tax benefits are modest payments—they are not outlandish payments; they are modest payments—and they help low- and middle-income parents with the cost of raising children. I just cannot imagine why anyone would support this, and Labor certainly does not support this bill.

We are a party who support families, who recognise that families need this additional support, who know that come January, after Christmas and holidays, families struggle to provide the new school uniforms required by children, the books that are required in school, the new schoolbags and so on and so forth. Even buying boots for kids to participate in sport is a burden on families, and that is what this benefit is designed to assist with. Yet we see an attack in this place by a senator from New South Wales, our largest state. One assumes there are many families in New South Wales, whom Senator Leyonhjelm is supposed to be representing, who will be hit if this bill is successful. It just does not make sense at all.

There are about 1.6 million Australian families who receive family tax benefit part A, and that is who will be hit if this bill passes this place. In those families we have three million children. Is that who we really want targeted? Do we really and truly want to target three million Australian children? I don't and Labor does not, which is why we will not be supporting this bill. As I said, this comes at a time when the Prime Minister is still pursuing his very expensive paid parental leave scheme—although he has told us these 'barnacles' are supposed to be coming off before Christmas. I am not sure if the paid parental leave scheme is a barnacle. Certainly that is our view.

But this bill attacks honest, hardworking parents doing the very best they can for their children and therefore our country's future. That is what this bill does. It will reduce the payment. Imagine how families are feeling. We already have families and ordinary Australians carrying the burden of Mr Abbott's unfair budget. They are already carrying the burden and this bill will target them even further. It is an outrageous suggestion that anyone in this place could seriously contemplate supporting a bill which says to Australian families, 'You're on your own.' We already know that the Prime Minister and the Abbott government are saying to families, 'You're on your own,' and this bill takes it one step further.

I, along with many other Australians who pay taxes, want my taxes to support those who need a helping hand. I am proud that my taxes support our health system, our education system, our social security system. I am happy to pay more tax to enable that support to be there. To suggest that as a country we do not support Australians who need a helping hand is an outrage and it goes against what we are as Australians. We are a fair go country and it is a fair go to say that those in receipt of family tax benefit A are not the rich and wealthy in this country. They are deserving. They are hardworking. This bill seeks to attack three million children and I will have no part of it.