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

As we have just heard, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill 2015 comes back to this chamber in yet another incarnation. As we know, since the budget in 2014 the government has been trying to convince the community and senators that the best way to raise money is to take it off the low income families in this country and to affect family payments. We have had a series of attempts to bring the legislation to this chamber. Only a few weeks ago we had the first incarnation of the family payments structural reform and participation measures bill 2015. The bill that came before us had a range of processes around attacking family tax benefit for low income families.

In terms of the process, it was duly sent off to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee where we had a very short time frame—in fact, in my experience in this place it was one of the shortest time frames—to consider a very detailed piece of legislation. We did so, because that is what committees do in this place. As always, when we go to the community, particularly community organisations, and seek their help when we are considering pieces of legislation in the community affairs area, they respond. Even with the very short time frame we had, 19 submissions came forward, all talking about the bill and all opposing the bill. That is not unusual in that the people who care most about legislation are those who are concerned about it and think it will be negative. But, again, when it comes to the government's proposals on family tax payments and the linking of family tax payments with the child care package, there is a degree of threat that if the family payment legislation is not passed, the child care benefit package will not be able to be introduced. What happens is that people then react. People are concerned about how they will be impacted and how people who are already on fairly limited budgets will react to further reductions in their entitlements.

One thing that was most clear to our committee when we were considering the bill was that we had very little information from the department on which to consider the impact of this legislation. There was no modelling put before us. When we asked for circumstances we were told in the committee process that if we gave the department information on the kinds of families we were concerned about they would give us back information on how they would be impacted. I just want to put it on record that I do not think that is good enough. I have been working on this committee for many years, with other members of the committee, and we have built up great respect for members of the various departments with which we have been dealing. We have been able to realise the commitment and knowledge that they have on the issues and their real desire to provide information to senators both in the Senate estimates process and in committee inquiries to help us get a full picture of the situations we are considering.

But I am finding that that is not happening as openly as it has in the past—and it is not just me. Sometimes you begin to doubt whether it is only you who is feeling negative or concerned about the process, but I want to put on record the evidence that was given by the CEO of UnitingCare, Ms Lin Hatfield Dodds, when she came to our inquiry. She said:

It is paramount, we think, that the impacts of any reform are thoroughly and transparently assessed prior to changes being implemented that might result in adverse impacts on the most vulnerable members of our community.

It is therefore with concern that we note, in relation to the bill—

which was the previous bill—

that the government appears not to have released substantive evidence to highlight the impact of its proposed changes on families. It is our view that, in the absence of data sets and evidence to support or explain the measures in the bill, UnitingCare Australia is unable to support the proposed reforms.

That is the reaction that we heard from a number of the organisations who came to our inquiry and it was also the reaction from members of the committee.

This is not a new process. We have been looking at attempts to adapt the family tax benefit program for two years now. As I said, there has been great discussion and debate. We then had the bill come before us and, again, there was not open modelling about what would happen. In fact, we got more information from the Bills Digest from the Parliamentary Library, which did come forward with information on how this bill would operate and some of the impacts. It was not in a submission from the department but, nonetheless, we got the information from the Bills Digest.

I want to put on the record, that whilst this bill has now been split and Labor will be supporting the one element of the bill that is actually the new bill that is front of us, I do think that it is very important that, when discussing where we are this afternoon, we put this in context and explain what the bill was last week before this agreement had been reached. The bill that was before us at that stage—the one that we took to the committee to consider—was looking at significant cuts to family tax benefit A and family tax benefit B for people across a range of different situations. For family tax benefit A there were going to be very major cuts to people's entitlements. In the previous bill, 1.5 million families were scheduled to lose FTB A supplements—a cut of $726 per child every year—and 300,000 of those families would not get the increase to the FTB A per child amount.

I do not like the term 'carrot and stick'—I always think the stick is much bigger than the carrot—but the actual encouragement in that bill was that there was going to be an increase, though we did work out that the balance was not there. Even though the increase of $1,000 had been widely publicised as a positive element, the element had not actually been worked through as to how many people were going to be better off as opposed to those who were not. We were not able to get that data in detail. What we did find, though—and what was particularly worrying in that approach—was that there was a particular focus on sole parents and grandparent carers.

Extraordinarily confronting evidence around FTB cuts was given to the committee by people who come to see us very regularly from the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children. I want to put on record the comments that were made by Ms Terese Edwards, from the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children. She submitted:

What I do know is that it does not make sense to me, or to the sole parents that I am speaking on behalf of, that these two measures are linked.

These two measures are the child-care enhancement measure and the reductions to, particularly, FTB B. Ms Edwards continued:

We know that the families who will be the biggest losers are families who have children who are 13 and older. They will not be accessing child care.

That is because there is no effective child care, except some elements of outside-school care, for children who are over 13. It is one of the big gaps in our system that, for young people over 13, there is no effective process to provide support to those families. I am not saying that that is peculiar to this government; it is just a fact. It has been the case for a long time that, if you have a child over 13, there is no effective care for them, particularly when we are encouraging people to get into the workplace. Ms Edwards went on to say:

So it seems like one group is going to go through an absolute depth of despair and harm to pay for an investment in another group. The first time that this was linked was after a couple of failed attempts to get this measure through. It does not make sense to me for it to be linked at all.

That was certainly the position that Labor senators took.

In the other place, Jenny Macklin, our shadow minister, who has been working in this area for a long time, put some quotes into her contribution around the situation of grandparent carers. This is something that our committee was particularly focused on, because we have done a lot of work in the area of grandparent carers. Grandparent carers had contacted her and the department saying, 'How will I manage if I lose $100 a fortnight?' That was a quote from Marlene Lamb, a constituent from the electorate of Petrie, who contacted Jenny and spoke about her 12-year-old granddaughter who was going to turn 13 very soon. Marlene, the grandmother, had been looking after her granddaughter for a long time, and the proposed cuts at that time were going to have a significant impact on the family and on the way that they were going to be able to survive.

We need to understand that these amounts can be seen to be small when we are talking about the end-of-year bonus payment—which was on the target line before we made the change to the bill this afternoon—but, during the committee's inquiry, it was put on the table that the original reason for the end-of-year bonus was that there were concerns around people being able to fully budget and do the returns that they needed to do with the taxation department. At one stage with the FTB A process debt that could be incurred with the taxation department, and that bonus payment was there to mitigate that process.

The department's evidence was that with the new changes with technology to make it easier for the two systems to operate—the taxation system and the family payments system—there would not be that difficulty in making in sure that you did finalise your accounts in the right way, and that you would be able to know where you were with you family tax payments. We accept that statement. Except that there was absolutely no trust from the community, nor from the committee, that a verbal guarantee that the system would operate well would be able to be fulfilled.

Whilst the academic argument about why there would be no further need for an end-of-year bonus was clearly on the table—that was that—and was accepted, what people like Ms Lamb in Petrie were saying was that the reduction of that amount of money, which was now built into her budget, would have significant impact on the single-parent family's grandparent parent budget because that money was used immediately to provide the kinds of services in their family that were so important, such as the purchase of school uniforms and the purchase of end-of-year processes—the kinds of things a bonus cash budget payment was very useful for. It was important for those families that their need was identified, and that there was some understanding from their government that we are not talking about people for whom these amounts of money are insignificant. These amounts of money make a real difference in the survival budgets of people raising children.

Through the process of our committee, we took evidence from ACOSS and the welfare rights group as always. ACOSS did raise particular concerns about the impact on parents who were trying to raise children and the costs that do go up. I do not think that there is any doubt that there has been significant evidence over many years that you do not have a reduction in the costs of raising children just because they turn 13. We have significant evidence—and I know the department has significant evidence, which they presented in previous inquiries—that indicates that it is no cheaper to have a child at 13 or 14 than it is to have a child at seven or eight, or even as a newborn.

The reasoning provided by the department and the government was that the FTB payments would be reduced so that there would be a greater incentive for people who are receiving that payment to then go and seek work and go into the workplace. That is the linkage with the argument that was presented to us for why there would be a reduction in the payments. There was some push-back from the evidence that we received, on the day of the committee hearing, about how difficult it is when you are trying to seek work and continue to raise children. And, whilst it may be seen that there would be an extra financial incentive to seek work, because you have had your FTB payments removed, in terms of whether that actually provides you with any greater skill or any greater ability to find work, there was some scepticism in the evidence that we received.

It certainly could be seen that the theory of the evidence is real—the theory that if you remove a payment that will be more than incentive for someone to go out and seek employment. I will not use the standard statement that is made many times in this argument about what the best form of welfare is. Nonetheless, when you are trying to balance the various responsibilities that you have, particularly in the case of children over 13, for whom there is no really firm child care available, it does not seem to add up how it will work if you are going to link these two things.

We had no evidence before us that any element of the previous legislation, or in fact with the current legislation before us, denied the fact that we need to ensure that when people are able to seek work they should be able to do so. There was no organisation or individual who rejected that premise. What they did question was how this particular bill would enhance that opportunity. What they wanted to do was ensure that the element of fairness, which has been quoted significantly by the minister, would be sensed by the people who were most in need of the support of their government—to raise their children and to balance that child-raising responsibility with the need to seek work.

In terms of the new bill—and I am not even sure whether it has an absolutely new title—which is the one that relates particularly to partnered families with children over 13, it has not been an easy decision for the Labor Party to support the recommendation that we would cease the payments of people in that situation. We did have concerns raised by people who came to our inquiry around that element.

It is really very important that as we move forward with the legislation we understand that there needs to be close monitoring of the change that may go forward after the bill is passed and what exactly the impact will be on families, and that there is no automatic assumption that there will be this natural link between the reduction of the payment and the ability to seek work.

I ask that the department provide information to us that would show how they are going to monitor that process; whether we are going to have data that will show the impact; how families who will have their family payments changed will be traced; what support they will receive in returning to the workplace, which is the intent of the legislation; and how the department is going to work with the organisations who are in the field, who are working all the time with families who are finding it tough and who are working with families legislation. We would like to get some information back from the department about how that is going to interact. Where families with children over 13 will lose family tax benefit B, how will that be monitored to see where the link will be with increased employment? And how will we know families in that situation have the support they need to find the work which we all know the government is seeking that they should have?

We will be supporting this new legislation but the new legislation needs to be considered with what has gone before, with the various attempts the government has made to make changes and also to ensure that we know there will not be ongoing attacks on family payments in the system, particularly not when there is put forward this immediate link between having to cut this element of family payments in order to pay for the child care package. That is not being seen by the community or in fact by people on this side of the chamber as an automatic link and the way we should be proceeding in these arguments about true fairness in our community.