Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I confirm that the Greens will be supporting the requests and amendments moved by Senator David Pocock, which are identical to the requests and amendments that we were moving. I'll withdraw requests (1) to (3) and amendments (4) to (6) on sheet 2037. I start off with that clarification.

Certainly, in supporting them, we feel these amendments are important in building upon the measures in this bill. As I have said over the last months and will continue to say, we support the measures in the bill, which reintroduce the parenting payment single for single-parent families whose children are aged over eight. It's an important measure, and we really do congratulate the advocates who have worked so hard to get the government to engage with this and to make this change. It will make an absolute, measurable difference to so many families' lives and to so many children's lives once they are able to access the increased rate of support under parenting payment single rather than the abysmally poor rate of JobSeeker. We know that it is, to some extent, reversing the changes that the Howard government introduced, which forced parents to lose access to the payment when their youngest child turned eight.

However, the government is only increasing the parenting payment single until a child is aged 14, leaving 18,290 single parents currently without access to the payment based on the latest available data. We are concerned, as I know are the advocates. We know that the needs of single-parent families don't go away when their children turn 14. Some of those parents are already engaging in the workforce well before their children being 14. They might be working part-time, so are using the parenting payment single to top up the income coming into the household so they can afford to live. Any of us who have had teenage children aged between 14 and 16, or who are thinking of the struggles of being a single parent with children aged between 14 and 16, know the need for this support is still there. The amendments moved by Senator Pocock and I would reinstate the measure to the way it was before former Prime Minister Howard changed it back to eight.

The other measure in these amendments is to bring forward the date of implementation. I hear what the minister says—that 20 September is the earliest the department could do it. Frankly, I don't accept that. Frankly, we have a situation of this incredible cut-off that potentially could have been solved by having some level of temporary payment. There were all sorts of measures that could have been brought into play to bridge that gap so that families with kids turning eight after 1 July would be able to access the payment immediately rather than having to wait for 20 September.

So I want to know: did the government have any consideration at all of enabling families whose kids are turning eight as of 1 July to access this increased payment or a temporary bridging payment immediately, so that they weren't forced into living in poverty on the totally inadequate JobSeeker payment for those months between 1 July and 20 September?