Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Family Payments Structural Reform and Participation Measures) Bill 2015 in its new form, although I will be referring to elements of the bill considered by the Senate committee which tabled its report 20 minutes ago. The Greens will not be supporting this bill, the same as we would not have supported the previous bill which the Senate committee considered. We will not be supporting another bill when comes in if the government attempts to bring in the measures they cut out of this bill.

The previous unamended version of this bill was simply another attempt at the government's cruel budget cuts to family tax benefits it has been trying to get through in the last two budgets. We opposed those cuts then and, having examined these in detail, we oppose these cuts and the cut in the bill we have just been just talking about and to which Senator Moore was referring in her contribution just then. Many of the points she made apply to the very measure that the ALP am now going to support, it seems, through the chamber. The cuts are still crawl, they are still unfair and they still impact on those who need support the most. Before the Community Affairs Committee had even reported on the previous elements of this bill, the government and Labor had agreed to a watered-down version of the cuts which focus on couples or partnered families with children over 13. As I said, we will be opposing these cuts.

In the second reading speech in the other place, the Minister for Social Services several times mentioned supporting families. This is typical of the government. They talk about a bill which enhances support but what they are really doing is taking away support and resources from those most vulnerable people in our community, from the families who really do need this support. I cannot see have can call it supporting when they you are taking money out of the pockets of some of the most disadvantaged members of our community.

The bill as originally introduced would have been a $4.8 billion cut to supports that the government provides for the family tax benefits system. Slashing family tax benefit B would have cut support to thousands of Australian families including single parent families, grandparent carers and low-income coupled families who are going to be significantly affected by the agreement that the Labor Party and the government have come to. One of the key features in the original bill was that the government would cut family tax benefit for all carers with children over the age of 13 and then put a little bit back in for single parents and grandparent carers.

The government seems to have learnt little from the last attempt at doing this with cuts to grandparents and single parents. Even so these were supposedly less harsh, it is very clear that they were cuts to vulnerable people who are supporting children. Also they have forgotten that it still damages—and even the current measures agreed to by the government and Labor hurt other carers—grandparents, who are not the only people in this country beside children's' parents who care for children. The government seems to have forgotten that. While I am really pleased that they are finally paying attention to grandparent carers because for so long they have ignored them, they now seem to forget there are foster carers and in particular kinship carers. Grandparent carers are fewer in number than other kinship carers but we do not seem to worry about kinship carers. I will come back to that issue in a moment but I do not want anyone to think for a minute that I am not really pleased that at least grandparent carers are being acknowledged now and that there is a modicum of attention paid to them. But there are a whole lot of other carers who are supporting children in this country.

The government's decision to cut a payment as children grow older runs counter to all the evidence. In our inquiry hearing, departmental officials referred to the cost-of-children table being used to calculate child support. This was brought up by Terese Edwards from the Council for Single Mothers and Their Children, who very clearly said that on one hand the government is implying a child costs less when they are 13 because they are cutting the payments but, on the other hand, through child support, they acknowledge that children cost more once they turn 13. This reflects the fact that children cost more as they grow older. Similarly, the government's own McClure report said:

The costs of children increase markedly at key points in the lifecycle, such as starting primary school, starting secondary school—

around 12 and 13—

and entering the final two years of secondary school.

The report recommended that a new payment to cover children's' costs should be higher for older children. That is what the experts have told the government, but it does not take an expert to know. I consider myself an expert. I am a mother of a slightly older child but I was the mother of a teenager. I can testify to the fact that sometimes they go to sleep one day, but when they get up the next day you have to buy them a different sized shirt or shoes, not to mention the fact that you can never keep food in the fridge unless you have put a lock on the fridge. Their activities are more expensive and again, I am an expert on that. All up, the evidence clearly shows that children cost more once they turn 13.

The government has argued, wrongly, that part of its goal is to force people into the workforce. The National Foundation for Australian Women—who were, in fact, emailing people today—said that the proposed cuts to family tax benefit A and family tax benefit B are not likely to have any positive impact on female workforce attachment. They will hit hard in identifiable regions with high concentrations of low-income families and lack of employment opportunities—outer suburban areas of capital cities and in the regions.

The coalition has form in claiming that cuts will improve workforce participation. That was the rationale when they were moving people from the parenting payment for single people, which effectively cut their payments and forced thousands of single parents into poverty by living on Newstart. The evidence shows that an approach like this will not work, but this government appear not to care about the evidence or about what their cuts will do to families. They are continually cutting payments from the most vulnerable. But simply bullying people will not mean that they can find work; simply cutting out their supports and making it harder for them to raise children will not mean that the jobs are there for people to be able to find work. As the National Foundation for Australian Women points out, the areas where this will hit hardest are, in fact, those where people are less likely to be able to find work.

During our Senate inquiry we heard evidence from a range of groups and organisations about the impact of this bill. Down Syndrome Australia provided valuable evidence to our inquiry. They spoke about the challenge that people with an intellectual disability can face in transitioning from one school environment to another, and the risks involved in cutting supports to a family during that period. We received submissions from single parents who have already been impacted by successive cuts by both the Labor government and the Liberal government, when they were forced from parenting payment single on to Newstart. These cuts forced thousands of single parents onto Newstart and left many struggling in poverty as they were trying to look after their children. Cutting family tax benefit B to single parents would be another cut to an already vulnerable group. As Ms Terese Edwards, on behalf of the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children, told our inquiry:

Sole parents have borne the brunt of successive cuts. They are completely ill equipped to manage any further reductions.

I also want to thank Ms Edwards for highlighting how essential family payments can be to victims of domestic violence, and would like to quote what she said to the inquiry:

With regard to family and domestic violence, our survey of single mothers impacted by family and domestic violence stated that family payments are essential—not just helpful, not just good but essential—when they exhausted their savings and borrowed money.

She continued:

We also heard from families about the ongoing cost to protect themselves, the cost of continuously leaving and running, and the cost of extra medical support, counselling et cetera.

Ms Edwards highlighted very clearly the impact of the cuts to family tax benefits that the government were planning to make, and are still waiting in the wings to make. The cuts the government want to impose have real impacts, and it is incredibly important that we be aware of and recognise what these cuts mean to members of our community.

The government's proposals to cut family tax benefit A and B supplements—which they are still planning to do—will be a massive hit on support for families that rely on them. Again, we received evidence to the inquiry of the value of these supplements. No matter what the government says they were originally intended for, and I will go into the issues around IT in a minute, this money is real money to real families. This is, in fact, something that you could almost think that the government were trying to hide, and I will speak more about that in a minute. But the family tax benefit supplements are a significant amount—$726 on family tax benefit A and $354 for family tax benefit B. When you are only on a little bit of money, that is an awful lot of money, particularly when it comes in as a bulk payment. There are lots of things that you can do with that money.

The minister may have no idea about this, but this is something that makes a real difference to those who are struggling. It is something they can rely on because they know it is coming; they know they can pay those bills that come in at that time. They know they can perhaps pay for that white good that has broken down and has needed repairing for ages, or for the car repairs or the car insurance. We heard in our inquiry about the very practical needs that the supplements are meeting. As I said, some families are able to meet larger expenses like car registration or replacing products that have broken down. These can be major challenges when you are struggling as a family and, as I said, every dollar literally counts.

Another issue in the government's original proposal is that it relies on IT systems that are not yet in place. This is where, in fact, we had another discussion about—surprise, surprise—the ineffectiveness of myGov. The government argued that the Australian Taxation Office's one-touch system would allow people to estimate their income more accurately. They also said that because of that the need for the end-of-year supplements would be removed, but the IT system the government is relying on does not yet exist. After consulting with stakeholders we understand that the government has delayed its rollout because of the practical challenges of implementing the system. We have heard from multiple witnesses in our inquiry about the problems they are encountering with the Department of Human Services' computer system and the myGov site. The government may be delaying the IT system, but they wanted to start these cuts and roll them out, potentially before the IT system was actually up and running. Because of the damage these cuts would do and their impact on the most vulnerable in the community, we oppose these cuts. We opposed them in the bill that we were originally sent and we will oppose them when they come back.

Since the bill was introduced, but before our rapid Senate inquiry—and Senator Moore has highlighted that it was a very rapid Senate inquiry; it was not even a full day—and before that even had time to report, the government had amended their own bill. They negotiated with Labor for a smaller impact, to cut out some of those measures that I have just spoken about, and will cut family tax benefit B to couple families whose children are aged 13 and over.

We know from Senate estimates that there are 76,000 families that would lose family tax benefit B when this measure is legislated. There are about 25,000 families with a family income of less than $40,000. ACOSS estimates the poverty line for a couple with two children at $840 a week. In annual terms, that figure is around $43,000. This legislation will cut family tax benefit B support to thousands of families, coupled families, who live below the poverty line.

We are also concerned about kinship carers and other groups who may not receive an exemption in the way that grandparents will. Departmental officials told us that where kinship carers receive family tax benefit B but are not grandparents there will be no special consideration. They will simply lose the payment as the child turns 13. These are kinship carers who are in the same place as grandparent carers. The difference is that maybe they think grandparent carers might not go back into the workforce—and there was some discussion about that—but kinship carers will. You have to remember the nature of the care that they provide to the children who are in their care. More often than not, these children will be very damaged, coming from very traumatic circumstances, whether it is because of the outright of their death of their parents or some other reason that children have to go into care.

The inquiry into out-of-home care that the Community Affairs References Committee recently carried out showed really clearly that children are traumatised and damaged by the circumstances which lead to their care. Kinship carers go above and beyond when they are looking after these children, and here is the government saying: 'We don't care. They can have the cuts as well.' Kinship carers face a unique set of circumstances. If the government has the wit to address the issues for grandparent carers, surely they can address the issues around kinship carers. These cuts will hurt the most vulnerable in our community and this is an issue we are deeply concerned about.

I said I would touch on transparency and the impact of these cuts. As was discussed by Senator Moore earlier, the government could not tell us. When we asked for the figures, they said they could do cameos. Those cameos conveniently did not cover all family types and did not cover some of the essential impacts on families. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the government cannot provide us with the detail. I am particularly concerned that this reflects a failure by government to uphold the standards that are essential to our democracy if it is to function effectively. It is essential in a well-functioning democracy that citizens be able to trust the government and that it be open and honest about its policies, and try not to hide information from citizens or from the institutions that are intended to hold government to account. Where a government tries to hide information, it can have a corrosive effect on the trust that is essential in our society.

I am disappointed that the government have not been fully transparent about the impact of these cuts. In a press release announcing these changes, the government included cameos that were supposed to show the impact of these cuts, but they included the impact of the childcare changes because they are linking the childcare changes to these changes. If you have a child over 13, it is very unlikely that you will be accessing child care. Again, I will speak as a parent of a child who used to be a teenager: you could not get child care for after-school care when a child was in high school.

So the government are taking from this group of parents, as Ms Edwards pointed out, and giving to another group of parents. Do not pretend that the overall benefit is going to be to everybody who will be cut off family tax benefit B because they it will not. The low-income couples are going to be losing money as a result of these cuts that are about to pass this chamber because the government and the opposition are in agreement. They are definitely going to impact on one group of parents to the benefit of another. Did anybody ask those low-income parents who are going to lose this money whether they think that this a good idea? No, you did not ask them. We asked at the Senate inquiry. Unfortunately, we did not have the time to ask individuals but we certainly asked organisations, and I have had emails about it.

People are clearly very annoyed and concerned that the most vulnerable in our community will, yet again, pay for cuts to the budget where the government are too gutless to face up to big business and properly address tax evasion which is where they could be saving money and where they could be dealing with revenue. Instead, some of the most vulnerable members of our community, those on low incomes, are the people who will bear these cuts.

So it is absolutely fallacious to put out cameos that imply that these families are going to be better off when quite clearly they are not going to be better off. And the government did not include a whole lot of other variables in those cameos. I am sure the government was able to model the impact that this would have because others have managed to do it. Others have managed to work out how much families will lose. It is all very well, sorry, for Labor to say that they want to monitor this. The government cannot even tell us the bottom line when they are actually presenting this. So how can they monitor it when they do not know or will not admit what the baseline data is in the first place? The Greens will not be supporting this bill.