Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank senators who have contributed to this debate. My remarks in closing this debate will be very brief.

I will just deal with some of the remarks that have been made that by pausing indexation of family tax benefit payments somehow we are ripping money out of people's pockets. That is actually not true. Out of all of the savings options that we have been able to explore with relevant senators that were prepared to engage with the government, the judgement that we all made together was to pause indexation to ensure that every family will continue to at least receive the same level of payment that they are currently getting moving forward. No family will actually receive less as a result of the changes that are before us today. They will receive the same level of payment. Many of them will receive higher payments because relevant low-income eligibility thresholds will continue to be indexed. But nobody will actually receive less than they are receiving today.

This is not something that was invented by the coalition and the crossbench; this is something Labor themselves in government have used several times. I heard Senator Pratt and Senator Wong in particular talking about the government ripping $1.3 billion out of families' pockets. I will just point to two examples, but there are many more from the Labor years in government. In 2009-10, the Rudd Labor government, with Mr Swan as Treasurer, delinked the indexation of FTB part A payments from pension indexation arrangements. That is, they lowered the level of indexation, which in 2009-10 dollars saved about $1 billion over the then forward estimates. The $1 billion over the 2009-10 forward estimates is actually more than what we are talking about with the indexation pause now.

There is more. Labor paused all indexation of all FTBA and FTBB supplement payments—not thresholds, as Senator Wong was addressing to Senator Hanson. Labor paused all indexation of all FTBA and FTBB supplements—not for two years but, wait for this, for a total of six years, in their 2011-12 and 2013-14 and 2015 budgets, saving well over $1 billion in 2011-12 and 2013-14 dollars, respectively.

So, just on those two measures, where Labor reduced the level of indexation—using Labor's language here today—Labor in government ripped money out of the pockets of Australia's most vulnerable families. We never said that then, because it was not true then—and Senator Pratt, it is not true today. What we are doing here, by pausing indexation, is the way to ease the necessary saving by spreading the effort across the broadest possible base in order to ensure that we can make this investment in additional support for families needing to access more affordable, more flexible childcare arrangements. And of course, as you know, those childcare reforms are particularly designed to improve and boost supports available for low- and middle-income families in particular.

So, I reject the criticism. I do not want to be partisan at this late hour, but in the context of what you did yourself in government, to criticise what we are proposing to do here with the sort of rhetoric that you have been pursuing today is just not reasonable. I would even call it hypocritical. With those few words, I commend the bill to the Senate.