Nick Xenophon (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I can indicate that I and my colleagues will support this bill, and I want to put this in context in terms of what has occurred. The government's previous measures included a range of cuts involving billions of dollars worth of cuts to family tax benefits, family payments and the like. It would have meant that a sole parent with a low single income of well under $100,000, of below average weekly earnings, depending on how many children they had and their age, would have been hit with thousands of dollars worth of cuts, which could have been quite devastating for that family.

This is a country that is built on migration. One in four Australians were born overseas, and one in two were either born overseas or have a parent who was born overseas. The government's previous measures would have meant that those who are migrants would have been disadvantaged by having benefits cut off after a certain period if they went to visit family and friends. In many cases, that is the final journey that people take to say goodbye to their loved ones in another country. We resisted those changes because of the very clear representations made by those in multicultural communities in this country. I thought that resist those changes was a fair thing to do.

There were also issues in respect of the pensioner education supplement. I know that ACOSS and Cassandra Goldie, and many others, raised concerns about the impact of those cuts to the tens of thousands of Australians who rely on that supplement. It is an important supplement in respect of their educational advancement—learning new skills and being able to advance their ability to work in the workforce. That is something that we said was a measure that went too far.

There was also the issue of the energy supplement. Notwithstanding that the carbon tax was removed, energy prices in this country are going up and up; and they are going up because of the absence of a descent energy policy in this country. For many years, I have advocated that the cheapest and most efficient way to reduce carbon pollution to ensure that we meet our Paris agreement targets would be to have an emissions intensity scheme. I and the now Prime Minister, when he was opposition, commissioned Frontier Economics to design a scheme which we thought was a smarter approach than that of the former Labor government. The great paradox is that, back then, Labor called it a mongrel of a scheme but, since then, has had the position that that scheme is 'top dog', that it is the best way to pursue an effective carbon emissions policy which will also ensure energy security and reduce prices. Unless we had something like that in place, where we actually saw a reduction in energy prices for consumers, then I cannot countenance removing that supplement whilst energy prices are so high and going up and up.

What we saw in relation to the omnibus bill prior to negotiations with the crossbench was a series of measures that would have hit many families very hard. The counterbalancing issue is: how do you pay for the $1.6 billion package of childcare reforms—a worthy package that will help hundreds of thousands of families in this country—and all the good things child care does for our social fabric? That is a vexed issue. The tax cuts that were supported by the opposition, which were opposed by the Greens and by my colleagues and I, were worth $4½ billion for those earning over $80,000 a year. It would have been better for those tax cuts not to have gone through. That would have been a much better fiscally responsible approach, in my view, but I had to deal with the envelope provided to me by the government. In other words, the government would not countenance tax increases in relation to these measures.

As a result of negotiations with the government, we have come up with an approach that leads to a freeze in indexation for two years. That is the principal measure. That means people will not get an increase in their family tax benefit for a period of two years. We are in a low inflation environment, and it is something that is more tenable than if we were in a high inflation environment. It means people would not be any worse off in terms of the actual income that they are receiving. That is important. It also means that many families would be better off because of the improved childcare package, which I think strikes that balance. This is not ideal but in my view it is the 'least worst' option in dealing with these issues in a way that would not cause severe hardship to many thousands of families as was proposed in the omnibus bill. So I believe it is a significant improvement and much more equitable than the previous measure that the government was pushing. The alternative would have been a stalemate. The alternative would have been a childcare package that would have been held up. As imperfect as this solution is, I believe it is the best solution given the circumstances and given the constraints that we have had in negotiating with the government in respect of this.

I believe that this bill is a significant improvement on what we had previously. I believe it is much more equitable, and it has removed the worst aspects of the impact that the omnibus bill would have had on families and particularly on sole-parent families. For that reason, we support it. We have made it clear that we support this bill for the second reading stage, and particularly for the committee stage, not being constrained. If the Senate wants to debate this all day today, tomorrow, the next day and into the weekend, we will not support any restriction on the debate for this bill to be dealt with and for questions to be asked in the committee stage. That is something that I think is important to deal with substantive issues in respect of this bill.

So that is our position. We believe that this is a breakthrough that will ensure that a childcare package that is broadly supported in this place will proceed. It will minimise the impact on families around the country, and it will be a much fairer package of measures than was previously proposed by the government.