Patrick Dodson (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Reconciliation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Simplifying Income Reporting and Other Measures) Bill 2020. While Labor supports this bill, we are seriously concerned about the government's ability to implement these changes properly. The bill will change the way income is reported to Centrelink. Its aim is to improve the accuracy of income reporting. It will remove the requirement for people to estimate their total pay based on the number of hours worked, which, of course, is more susceptible to error. Income will be reported based on when a person is paid, not when income is earned. In most instances people will receive their pay slip before reporting their income. This shift to reporting income when it is paid will more closely align the receipt of the employment income with the timing of the Centrelink payments. It will make it easier for people to manage their budgets.

The bill will also enable Centrelink to use the Single Touch Payroll information from the Australian Taxation Office to prefill income for Centrelink reporting. It will not be automated reporting, however. The individual will still be required to check and certify income that is prefilled using the Single Touch Payroll system. Improving the accuracy of income reporting will reduce instances of overpayments and underpayments. That's the hope and the wish. For many, the new reporting system will be more straightforward than existing payment and reporting arrangements. The prefilling of Single Touch Payroll data will, hopefully, make income reporting more convenient.

I note, however, that ACOSS and other stakeholders support these changes in the bill if they are properly implemented. If properly implemented, they could make interacting with Centrelink much easier for people on social security. But the government has to get it right. Labor are very concerned that the government simply won't get the implementation of these changes right, and we've got good reason to hold these concerns. This is a government that holds in contempt Australians who are doing it tough. No-one will forget the government's legacy of robodebt. This government has run down Centrelink services to the point where pensioners are waiting months to get the pension or are having to spend hours on the phone waiting to speak to someone.

We do not want to see more people having to wait for these payments or having those payments cut off. We certainly do not want to see any more people issued with false or inflated debts, because the government was unable to implement these changes properly. If people have questions, they should not be left waiting on the phone for hours. It is absolutely critical that the government has the right system and resources in place to make this scheme work. The government's track record on managing our social security safety net has been horrendous. The government must not let these new reporting arrangements go the way of robodebt.

This is a government that pursued thousands of innocent Australians with false or inflated debts for three long anxious and fearful years. For three long years the government stubbornly tried to defend the shambolic, cruel and illegal robodebt system. This is a government that has sought to make claiming or applying for income support so difficult, so painful and so frightening that vulnerable Australians just give up. This is a government that has axed, and outsourced to labour hire, thousands of Centrelink jobs. Over that time pension processing times skyrocketed and call waiting times to Centrelink for pensioners also skyrocketed. Older Australians who have done the right thing by this country, who have worked all their lives and contributed by paying taxes on their earnings, have been forced by this cruel government to wait months for their pension. Every pensioner will tell you their own personal nightmare about Centrelink. They have been forced to wait hours and hours on the phone just to speak to someone at Centrelink. Australians should not be made to jump one bureaucratic hurdle after another just to get access to Centrelink. Australians should be able to access income support or the pension as and when they need to.

It is no wonder the community are so anxious about the government's ability to implement these new reporting arrangements. The Senate inquiry into this bill certainly reflected the anxieties and concerns from the community. A number of submissions and witnesses raised significant concerns about this government's ability to implement the changes in the bill smoothly and efficiently. The National Social Security Rights Network, for instance, said:

We're particularly concerned about the transition periods, where we understand that people will actually need to do some manual calculations to make sure that the period that the data relates to is correct. That particular period is, I think, going to be fraught, and there are going to need to be additional resources from Services Australia to support people through that period.

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union said:

While we support the idea of making income support reporting simpler, the recent experience with robodebt offers salient warnings about the harms that arise when the algorithms that inform income imputations do not reflect the reality of variable income many underemployed workers experience. The robodebt experience shows how the design and digitisation initiatives too often occurs in a vacuum, with insufficient testing of the concepts on human subjects and with a disregard for the suffering that arises when these initiatives fail to work as intended.

The Australian Council of Social Service said:

We'd like to see the system tested on a large number of people in different circumstances and who live in different areas of Australia, with different access to online forms of communication, access to Services Australia et cetera … We need to see that comprehensive testing of the new scheme before it commences so that we can guard against any issues or problems that may exist in the scheme or that haven't been detected.

Importantly, we want to see testing with social security law experts and not just people who could be affected down the road. That's because they can often identify issues that people who would be using the scheme may not be aware of, simply because they have a decent understanding of social security law. If we compare it what happened with robodebt, there was no consultation there with experts at all.

And Anglicare, in their body of information, said:

There is a lot going on at Centrelink at the moment, and it would be really good to see demonstrated consolidation of the current lessons to assist in the future changes. These changes must be seen as an investment into a better system for Australians. They will not work for the people using Centrelink if they're viewed as a cost-cutting exercise. An investment outlook will involve careful design and testing, but it will, ultimately, deliver better outcomes for everyone.

Labor has supported the recommendations from the committee for further targeted consultations and user testing to be undertaken prior to the commencement of the simplification income reporting system to ensure that the measures and associated information and supports are capable of meeting the needs of all income support recipients.

Labor has also supported the recommendation that government commit to initiating a review of the implementation of the simplified income reporting measures within 12 months of commencement of the legislation and that a report of review be tabled in the parliament.

In addition, Labor has also recommended that the government take all reasonable steps during the period of transition to the new income reporting system to detect, to confirm and to correct overreporting of income. This is essential to ensure that payments are corrected and reflects the moral duty of care to use the available information in the system to make sure that social security recipients receive accurate payments.

We also recommend that the one-year review of the implementation of the changes proposed in the bill be conducted independently and that consultations with experts and social security recipients is part of the review process. Accordingly—to keep this slippery government honest—we're on the side that will be proposing three amendments to this bill. Firstly, we want to prevent the repeat of the unfair robodebt system. Secondly, we want to ensure that the government concludes a review of the changes in the bill. And thirdly, we want to improve the implementation of the bill through clearer rules about how irregular income will be averaged forward.

In conclusion, this government holds pensioners and those who find themselves in need of income support fundamentally in contempt. They have sought to make it so difficult and so painful for pensioners and other vulnerable Australians to access Centrelink that they have just given up; people have just walked away—it's too hard. That's what these schemes are designed to do. The government have unleashed the cruel robodebt system on thousands of innocent Australians, inducing fear and anxiety among the most-vulnerable Australians. They cut the pension and sought to cut it further—in every budget. And now they plan to cut the Newstart allowance by doubling the waiting period. Given this record, Labor is very concerned, and many in the community have already stated this, that the government runs a high risk of stuffing up the process of implementing these changes. The appeal is to pay attention to the implementation and ensure that it works for those in need and those who are reliant upon the system. But the Morrison government obviously can't be trusted to get Centrelink reporting right.