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

Just to recap briefly, yesterday the group of amendments we started on was the group on sheet 8254. If senators in the chamber recall, we had just dealt with item (30), which related to schedule 15, which related to the compliance regime. We separated that out because the Labor Party requested that we deal with it separately. I now seek leave to move the rest of the amendments on sheet 8254—that is, items (16) and (17) and items (20) to (23), which relate to schedules 1 and 2 and schedules 5 to 8.

Leave granted.

The Greens oppose schedules 1, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in the following terms:

(16) Schedule 1, page 5 (line 1) to page 54 (line 9), to be opposed.

(17) Schedule 2, page 55 (line 1) to page 70 (line 6), to be opposed.

(20) Schedule 5, page 117 (line 1) to page 140 (line 12), to be opposed.

(21) Schedule 6, page 141 (line 1) to page 152 (line 33), to be opposed.

(22) Schedule 7, page 153 (line 1) to page 164 (line 16), to be opposed.

(23) Schedule 8, page 165 (lines 1 to 18), to be opposed.

These schedules are: the schedule to create the jobseeker payment; the schedule for the cessation of widow B pension, which is schedule 2; schedule 5, which relates to the cessation of sickness allowance; schedule 6, which is for the cessation of widow allowance; schedule 7, which is for the cessation of partner allowance; and schedule 8, which is the schedule on the minister's rules.

We're seeking to move amendments to the schedules which relate to the jobseeker payment because we're concerned that a lot of these allowances are important allowances and are not actually about jobseeker payments. If you recall, we had a substantive discussion yesterday around the bereavement allowance, which isn't always about jobseeking. So we have concerns around all of those schedules. I raised all of these issues during my contribution in the second reading debate, and again when we've been discussing various schedules of this bill during this debate.

I do have a question for the minister around schedule 6. We've asked a lot of questions already. I'm not going to be asking a lot on these schedules, because we have dealt with some of them already. I want to ask about the widow allowance. How many women who will be on the jobseeker payment immediately before 1 January 2022, and who would have been eligible for widow allowance before 1 January 2018, won't be eligible for the age pension as they won't meet the residency requirements?