Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment and Water (Senate)) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) to (8), (17) to (31) and (33) to (38) on sheet 8236 revised together.

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 5), omit the table item.

(2) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 6), omit the table item.

(3) Clause 2, pages 2 and 3 (table item 13), omit the table item.

(4) Clause 2, page 3 (table item 14), omit the table item.

(5) Clause 2, page 3 (table item 15), omit the table item.

(6) Clause 2, page 3 (table item 16), omit the table item.

(7) Clause 2, page 3 (table item 17), omit the table item.

(8) Clause 2, page 4 (table items 20 and 21), omit the table items.

(17) Schedule 15, item 1, page 194 (line 11), omit "The Secretary must take action", substitute "The Secretary may take action".

(18) Schedule 15, item 1, page 194 (line 26), omit "The participation payment must be cancelled", substitute "The participation payment may be cancelled".

(19) Schedule 15, item 1, page 195 (lines 4 to 7), omit "the person's participation payment must be reduced by either 50% or 100% for a period (in addition to not being payable) or the participation payment must be cancelled. A participation payment must also", substitute "the person's participation payment may be reduced by either 50% or 100% for a period (in addition to not being payable) or the participation payment may be cancelled. A participation payment may also".

(20) Schedule 15, item 1, page 195 (lines 11 and 12), omit "no participation payments are payable", substitute "participation payments may not be payable".

(21) Schedule 15, item 1, page 195 (line 15), omit "participation payment must be cancelled", substitute "participation payment may be cancelled".

(22) Schedule 15, item 1, page 198 (line 12), omit "the Secretary must", substitute "the Secretary may".

(23) Schedule 15, item 1, page 198 (line 27), omit "the Secretary must", substitute "the Secretary may".

(24) Schedule 15, item 1, page 199 (line 7), omit "payments will not be payable", substitute "payments may not be payable".

(25) Schedule 15, item 1, page 199 (lines 27 and 28), omit "the Secretary must determine", substitute "the Secretary may determine".

(26) Schedule 15, item 1, page 199 (line 33), omit "the Secretary must determine", substitute "the Secretary may determine".

(27) Schedule 15, item 1, page 200 (line 1), omit "payments will not be payable", substitute "payments may not be payable".

(28) Schedule 15, item 1, page 200 (line 25), omit "the Secretary must determine", substitute "the Secretary may determine".

(29) Schedule 15, item 1, page 200 (line 27), omit "payments will not be payable", substitute "payments may not be payable".

(30) Schedule 15, item 1, page 200 (lines 33 and 34), omit "the Secretary must determine", substitute "the Secretary may determine".

(31) Schedule 15, item 1, page 201 (line 3), omit "or must not".

(33) Schedule 15, item 1, page 204 (line 3), omit "The Secretary must impose", substitute "The Secretary may impose".

(34) Schedule 15, item 1, page 204 (line 7), omit "The", substitute "If the Secretary imposes a reconnection requirement on a person, the".

(35) Schedule 15, item 1, page 204 (line 12), omit "The Secretary must determine", substitute "The Secretary may determine".

(36) Schedule 15, item 1, page 208 (line 23), omit "must, or must not", substitute "may, or may not".

(37) Schedule 15, item 1, page 208 (line 26), omit "the Secretary must make", substitute "the Secretary may make".

(38) Schedule 15, item 1, page 208 (line 28), omit "the Secretary must make", substitute "the Secretary may make".

We also oppose schedules (3), (4), (9) to (14) and (17) in the following terms:

(9) Schedule 3, page 71 (line 1) to page 91 (line 34), to be opposed.

(10) Schedule 4, page 92 (line 1) to page 116 (line 25), to be opposed.

(11) Schedule 9, page 166 (line 1) to page 168 (line 3), to be opposed.

(12) Schedule 10, page 169 (line 1) to page 171 (line 27), to be opposed.

(13) Schedule 11, page 172 (line 1) to page 173 (line 2), to be opposed.

(14) Schedule 12, page 174 (line 1) to page 188 (line 9), to be opposed.

(15) Schedule 13, page 189 (line 1) to page 191 (line 24), to be opposed.

(16) Schedule 14, page 192 (line 1) to page 193 (line 4), to be opposed.

(32) Schedule 15, item 1, page 201 (lines 14 to 19), subsection 42AI(3) to be opposed.

(39) Schedule 17, page 230 (line 1) to page 245 (line 31), to be opposed.

These amendments go to the substantive parts of this bill and the core reasons that Labor are opposed to it.

Schedule 3 provides for the cessation of the wife pension. This is not something that Labor support. We note that, of the 7,750 recipients, there are many who would transfer under this provision to the age pension and the carers payment and would be no worse off. Indeed, it makes sense to simplify payments. But I have to say that we are not prepared to see many other vulnerable women on the wife pension go backwards in their access to income support. There are 3,100 women who will be worse off and 2,900 women transferring onto a jobseeker payment. This is not a new area of social security; this has been closed to new applicants since 1995. So you have 2,900 women who will have been out of the workforce for more than 20 years who will be transferred onto a jobseeker payment. This is a pretty extraordinary thing to do to women who have had very little, if any, exposure to the workforce.

We are also very concerned about the 200 women living overseas who will no longer be able to access any income support other than the support that their spouse is eligible for. We can see that, overnight, they would be $670 worse off a fortnight. This is an incredibly perilous situation to put them into. We have here a group of low-income women who will be left with nothing to live on other than their partner's pension, many of them having been out of the workforce for a great many years. As I said before, they will have been receiving the wife pension for a minimum of 22 years.

It seems reasonable to us, in the opposition, that this group of women should be grandfathered, to avoid them facing such a significant financial crisis, the kind of crisis that comes with not only deep economic cost but also a great sense of personal distress. There are a reasonably small number of women affected; therefore, there would be a reasonably minimal cost of grandfathering them. It is indeed a cruel and unnecessary cut. In moving these amendments, I ask the government: when putting this schedule 3 forward, did you consider grandfathering the 200 low-income women who will be forced to live on nothing from 20 March 2020, and what would that have cost?