Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

At the end of the motion, add, "but,

(a) in respect of the Medical Research Future Fund Bill 2015 and the Medical Research Future Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2015 the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by and 10 August 2015; and

(b) noting that the provisions of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Pensions) Bill 2015 are under inquiry by the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, that the committee report on the bill by 10 August 2015.

This amendment to the motion to adopt the report relates to extensions to reports on two bills. One is the Medical Research Future Fund Bill, and the cognate Medical Research Future fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill. We ask that it be referred to the Finance and Public and Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 10 August. We believe that this is an extraordinarily complex bill. It incorporates a large chunk of budget, it has been under discussion for some time and there are various views from research facilities around the place as to exactly how it is going to operate, so we think there is a requirement that such an important piece of legislation actually have the opportunity for a process of inquiry through the finance and public administration committee. We are not asking for a long extension, just until the first sitting when we return in the new financial year. But we think it is very important that, with such a bill, the views of people in the community, not just in the medical research community but in the wider community who been hearing about this bill for a long time, be given consideration and the opportunity of a hearing.

The other bill is the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Fair and Sustainable Pensions) Bill. We are also asking that that be deferred for the same period of time, to 10 August. This is an interesting one because the initial bill that came to us, which was part of the budget cut-off in terms of issues in the budget that needed to be heard, included a number of elements. In this case, there were six particular elements in this one bill. It is not uncommon that we have a number of issues in one bill, but the particularly concerning bit for us is that the implementation dates of these elements vary immensely. Only one of the elements, which was in fact the energy supplement, needs urgent consideration, and we accept that. If you are wanting to move something quickly, the energy supplement has a commencement date of 20 June 2015, which is quite soon.

However, in this element of quite complex considerations—and, again, it is a significant budget measure out of this year's budget—two of the elements, the education supplement and the education entry payment, both of which were part of last year's budget and which we had discussions about, are not due for implementation until 1 January 2016. The capped deductible amount is in January 2016 as well. But the really large elements, and the core aspects of savings as put forward in these bills, relate to pensions outside Australia and the significant asset test changes that have been such a core element of the proposals put before this place by the government. Those elements of the bill are not due for implementation until 1 January 2017.

This is an important area of discussion. We know, as parliamentarians, that we have received a number of representations from people who are concerned about their futures—about their future earnings and the assets changes proposed in this budget. There has been no opportunity for scrutiny of this bill in the way it deserves through the Community Affairs Committee to this point. As we know, the numbers in the legislation committee process are held by the government. Originally there was an expectation that this bill, amongst three others, would be reported on by this week, with no opportunity for any scrutiny beyond looking at the papers because we were in the middle of Senate estimates. There has already been a proposal, which I believe the Community Affairs Committee are looking at, for this bill to be looked at with a reporting date next week. While we say that that is an improvement on reporting this week, it is not sufficient. It is not sufficient for this Senate not to have the amount of scrutiny that these changes should receive. The impact on Australians, the impact on future pensions in this country and the impact on families is significant. There are a range of views and concerns. We say that it is not good enough to bring a package of proposals into this place and say that because one element has an urgent time frame it should be all wrapped up together in one parcel and heard and then be brought back to this place with too quick a turnaround.

We believe that these changes are significant enough—they certainly are complex enough, when you go through the data on the changes to the assets process and also look at the composite impact of the changes proposed in this bill—to require effective scrutiny by the Senate. We know that scrutiny will not always lead to agreement, but we do believe that the job of this place is to scrutinise legislation. Again, 10 August is not an outrageous ask and our amendment proposes that extension.