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

Thank you. So, in concluding my remarks on this today, I say to the chamber: if someone is bereaved they may be employed and they may need income support just for the period of bereavement. They're not a jobseeker—they're quite capable of returning to the workforce—but they need that income support. I say to the chamber: there is nothing wrong with restoring the previous version of bereavement allowance. The previous version of the bereavement allowance pays it at the rate of the age pension. We can be secure knowing that it will continue to be paid at the rate of the age pension and not attached to a recalculated version of the jobseeker allowance, which we know has not tracked along as well as the age pension has. Historically, that allowance has been much lower than the age pension, and I would much prefer to see this allowance continue to retain its value alongside the age pension.

So I'm calling on Senator Hanson and her colleagues in One Nation: if you truly believe in making people who are bereaved better off in that very difficult time of their life, support the amendment put forward by the Greens.