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

The first thing I would say is that any suggestion that these measures come as a surprise and out of nowhere is completely false. In fact, the Labor Party has got to think about their narrative. In the lead-up to the last election, they called these measures zombies that had been around for so long that they were barely alive. Of course the government has always said that we were committed to securing the passage of the savings measures that have been reflected in the budget, and indeed we are continuing to make progress. We passed about $6.3 billion worth of savings in the first omnibus savings bill through the Senate in September last year with the general support of the Labor Party. Today we are seeking to secure the next instalment of remaining unlegislated savings from previous budgets through the Senate.

What I am pleased to share with the chamber is that three of the schedules that will be in this bill are in fact directly out of the social services omnibus savings bill, which has been in front of the Senate for some time and has been well and truly ventilated. It includes maintaining the income-free areas and means test thresholds for certain payments and allowances at their current levels for three years. It includes automating the income stream review process, which will lead to improvements in the accuracy of income support payments and reductions in customer debts. It also includes the extending and simplifying of ordinary waiting periods for the parenting payment and for youth allowance for a person who is not undertaking full-time study and is not a new apprentice.

On top of that, what we are proposing to do is pause the indexation of family tax benefit payments for two years from 1 July 2017—again, this is not a new concept and this is not something that is very difficult to understand. What it means is that no family that receives payments today will lose payments. Every single family that receives payments today will at least receive the same payments moving forward. There will not be indexation for two years. Though, because of the continuing indexation in particular in relation to lower-income thresholds and the like, it is likely that many families will still continue to see some increases in payments, but there will not be any indexation in the base rate and maximum payment rates.

At the same time they are saying, 'Oh, you want to ram this through'—which of course we will not; it will be an open-ended debate—and 'We haven't seen any of this before,' which of course everybody has. This has been well ventilated since the 2014-15 budget. In fact Senator Whish-Wilson was quoting proverbs in question time the other day, talking about dogs returning to their vomit. He said: 'These measures have been around for so long—why are you persisting with them?' But the government is persisting with them. The government is continuing to seek to legislate, and it is true that we have worked with crossbench senators because Labor and the Greens in relation to these measures were not prepared to pursue further budget repair, even though it was necessary, given the mess Labor left behind.

Today is the next instalment. Building on the progress that we made in the initial omnibus savings bill, we will be able to secure more savings today. There will be more work to do after today, but this is as far as we believe the Senate will be prepared to go on this occasion, and that is what we are putting forward.

Senator Di Natale, at the same time as saying he does not know what we are doing, then proceeds to criticise all of the things that supposedly he does not know we are doing: 'I don't know what you are doing, but this is what it is and I'm against it.' The truth is: we could be arguing in this Senate about these measures for as long as it takes to walk from Canberra to Perth and back, and the Labor Party and the Greens would still be opposed to them.

The Australian people want us to make progress. The Australian people want the Senate to make progress on budget repair. The Australian people want the Senate to deal with the government's important childcare reforms to make access to child care more affordable and more flexible for families. We are very grateful to the support from crossbenchers like Senator Hinch, Senator Xenophon and his team, and the One Nation team, for having worked constructively with the government to help facilitate further budget repair and also help facilitate the successful passage of very important childcare reforms. We certainly commend to the Senate that this motion, which was moved by our leader, Senator Brandis, should be supported, so that we can proceed with giving effect to the government's budget measures contained in the legislation on childcare reforms.