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

I don't have any discretion. I've never had any discretion. What we sought to do in March, when we put the coronavirus supplement in place—so we could get people onto payment as quickly as possible for administrative ease because, of course, we all saw those long lines around Centrelink and we worked so quickly and so hard to make sure that we got rid of those. One of the ways that we did that was to streamline our process, and one of the mechanisms was not to require many of these other things that we would normally require under normal circumstances for people to provide proof about other circumstances in their life. So we waived a number of the things that we required of them, and one of them was the liquid asset waiting period. So for the period from March to 25 September the liquid asset waiting period was waived for everyone. But what we sought to do—and we were successful, with the support of this chamber—was to reintroduce the liquid asset waiting period from 25 September. It is currently in effect for people coming onto payment who are over the threshold of the no-waiting period. What this particular amendment seeks to do is to reintroduce it on 1 January through to 31 March for two payments only—not all of the payments, just those two, albeit two big ones—with no discretion whatsoever: you serve a waiting period or you don't serve a waiting period.