Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank colleagues for their contribution. As colleagues, I am sure, appreciate, schedule 1 is attracting significantly more interest in this place than schedules 2 and 3. But I will speak briefly to each of the schedules.

To ensure that vulnerable people benefiting from income management continue to receive support, the government has committed $146.7 million to extend a streamlined version of income management to all existing locations until 30 June 2017. This will align end dates across all 12 locations across Australia.

The alignment extends to the income management element of Cape York Welfare Reform, which will also continue until 30 June 2017. This will enable income management to continue to provide additional support in disadvantaged locations for vulnerable people, children and families. The government is uniquely positioned, through the provision of welfare and family payments, to use income management to support vulnerable families by assisting them to stabilise and take control of their financial circumstances. This funding also included a limited expansion to new locations which may need additional support and would benefit from the income management program.

In response to a request from the South Australian Premier in the wake of the Chloe Valentine tragedy, on 14 August 2015 Minister Morrison announced that the child protection and voluntary measures of income management will be introduced to the Greater Adelaide region from October 2015.

This bill will streamline the income management program while ensuring continued support to people who benefit from income management. Streamlining includes the removal of social worker assessed referrals through the vulnerable welfare recipient measure, as this was an underutilised tool by social workers and highly resource intensive. The removal of this will also allow social workers to better service their vulnerable clients. While participants remain able to adjust how they use their funds to meet priority needs at any time, they will no longer be required to discuss these arrangements with Centrelink every eight weeks.

There will be a phased removal of the matched savings payment, which offers people on the compulsory measures up to $500 in matched savings if they complete an approved money management course and have demonstrated an appropriate savings pattern over a 13-week period. This will cease from 31 December 2015 as the payment was largely undersubscribed and costly to administer. There will be a phased removal of the voluntary incentive payments, which offer individuals a payment of $250 for every continuous period of 26 weeks. These payments will cease on 28 December 2015, which is the day 26 weeks after 30 June 2015, as evaluations have shown that incentive payments are not the main driver for people commencing income management and that they can create a dependency on the program. The BasicsCard Merchant Approval Framework will also undergo administrative and policy changes that will simplify the model, improve customer experience and remove unnecessary customer contact. The streamlined arrangements will achieve a saving of approximately $36 million over two years.

Schedule 2 relates to ceasing residential care subsidy for pre-entry leave. These amendments formalise the ceasing of payment of residential care subsidy to residential aged-care providers for holding a place open for a care recipient. These changes better target aged-care expenditure by only paying care subsidies on behalf of people who have actually entered permanent residential care. The savings associated with this measure, as stated in the explanatory memorandum, have largely been realised through amendments to the Aged Care (Subsidy, Fees and Payments) Determination 2014 and the Aged Care (Transitional Provisions) (Subsidy and Other Measures) Determination 2014. The amendments in the bill formalise these changes in the principal act. Previously, subsidy for the pre-entry period was paid to providers for up to seven days at the rate of 30 per cent of the full residential care subsidy that would be payable once the care recipient enters care.

Care recipients will still be able to take pre-entry leave prior to entering an aged-care service. The provider will not be able to recoup any lost residential care subsidy from the care recipient. However, the aged-care provider will still be able to charge the care recipient the standard resident contribution for the pre-entry period. Previously, any days taken as pre-entry leave were counted as part of the care recipient's entitlement to 52 days of social leave from the aged-care service. Under these amendments, the 52-day cap on social leave will not include any leave that was taken as pre-entry leave. This ensures any pre-entry leave taken by a care recipient does not negatively impact on their ability to take other forms of leave from the residential care service. The impact of lost pre-entry leave payment revenue should be considered in the context of other recent aged-care changes, such as the redirection of the former government's workforce supplement into the general pool of aged-care funding and the introduction of a higher level of accommodation supplement. The government is expected to provide $11 billion for residential care subsidies in 2015-16.

Schedule 3 relates to aged-care planning advisory committees. On 15 December 2014, as part of the 2014-15 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the government announced that aged-care planning advisory committees would be abolished, with ongoing functions to be performed by the Department of Social Services. This forms part of the Smaller Government reforms to reduce the size and complexity of government, streamline services and reduce the cost of government administration. The role of aged-care planning advisory committees was to provide advice in relation to the distribution of aged-care places. However, the last of these committees expired in September 2014. These amendments repeal the now redundant relevant provisions in the Aged Care Act 1997. It is important to emphasise that the government remains committed to engaging with stakeholders and obtaining local intelligence as part of the needs-based planning framework. Consequently, the department has consulted with a broad range of aged-care stakeholders to help inform the distribution of aged-care places in relation to the 2015 aged-care approvals round, which was announced on 15 August 2015.

While I am on the subject of aged care, I will observe Senator Polley's demonstration of an aeroplane earlier today when referring to severe behaviour response teams in relation to dementia. She chose an aeronautical analogy to describe those teams and demonstrated a surprising aerial capacity, I think it would be fair to say. I am tempted to go further on that subject, but I can tell by your raised eyebrow, Madam Acting Deputy President Lines, that you fear and suspect that I may be straying from the topic of this bill. But I could not let the opportunity pass without drawing the chamber's attention to that impressive effort on the part of Senator Polley. With those words, I commend this bill to my colleagues.