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

I acknowledge that the amendments made yesterday go some way towards improving the situation for bereaved persons, who will no longer be reduced completely to the jobseeker rate of payment. Again, I say to One Nation: if you truly want to support people who are bereaved then we should go back to the income and assets tests for the age pension, not the income and assets tests for the jobseeker payment.

When One Nation tried to assure the chamber that they had won a great victory for bereaved people, because people would be paid more than they were currently, that was patently false. They were only being paid more relative to the cuts that this government had put on the table, which would have reduced people's payments to the jobseeker rate of payment. All that amendment did was to restore the current rate of payment, but not for everybody who will receive it, because of the change in the income and assets test. If One Nation truly wanted to help people who are on low incomes, who have few assets—who are eligible for the age pension, for example—then they would be supporting the Greens amendment here now.

I ask the minister: if someone is old enough to qualify for a pension and if their assets test is low enough that they would qualify for an age pension but they are otherwise working and they want to go back to that job after they have finished their period of bereavement—so it's a bereavement version—will you pay them the age pension for that period, or will you pay them a jobseeker bereavement allowance?