Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

What I would like to do in my contribution is put on the record, to make sure that everybody in the chamber has absolute clarity, what this amendment will actually do. I believe that this amendment is almost identical to a similar amendment that I think the Australian Greens have on sheet 1160. When the Australian government put in place the coronavirus supplement in March, the initial coronavirus supplement had a provision that said that, for as long as the supplement was in place, people who came on to the payment would not be expected to wait for any liquid asset waiting period. It applied to two payments. It applied to JobSeeker payment and it applied to youth allowance (other). It did not apply to any of the other working-age payments.

So when we made changes, when the coronavirus supplement was due to expire on 25 September, we made the decision to extend the supplement. The process of extending the supplement meant that the liquid assets waiting period and the assets test, as they applied to those two payments only, would remain in place. At the time, the government sought the support of the chamber to remove those two provisions, to allow all of the other provisions that were put in place subsequent to the first coronavirus supplement provision, to no longer waive the liquid asset waiting period and to no longer waive the assets test. This chamber voted for that to occur.

This seeks to reintroduce, from the period of 1 January to 31 March, a waiving of the liquid asset period for the two payments of JobSeeker and youth allowance (other) only. I have no discretion whatsoever. It is an automatic action that anybody who comes onto payment after 1 January would not be required to wait the liquid asset waiting period. It would not matter how much money that person had in the bank. They could have hundreds of thousands of dollars or they could have $20,000 and I would have no discretion whatsoever in the provisions that are contained in the amendments on sheet 1162 and 1160 to say something to somebody who has $150,000 in the bank. I would put on the record that there are a lot of people who have come onto payment in the last couple of months who are subject to the liquid asset waiting period that do have significant amounts of money in the bank. I have no discretion whatsoever in terms of being able to say that this provision would only affect people under a certain level of resources.

So I just want to make sure that this chamber is absolutely clear. This is not giving me a power to have discretion to say: 'If you have many hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, you will be required to have a liquid asset waiting period. But, if you only have a few thousand dollars in the bank over the $5,500 limit where you don't have to serve any period as a single or $11,000 as a couple.' I have no discretion whatsoever. As soon as somebody exceeds that—I have no discretion at all. So it wouldn't matter how much money somebody had in the bank, they would automatically be able to access payments from day one, because, as you would be aware, the one-week waiting period is waived at the moment. That continues to go through. So nobody has any waiting period if they are eligible. However—I just want to be very clear—this is not a discretionary power you are giving me. It is something that is embedded in this legislation that says that anybody coming onto payment from 1 January 2021, no matter how many liquid assets they have in the bank, will not have to wait any waiting period. So I just wanted to make sure everyone was very clear about that.