Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I think there are a number of competing concepts in all of this. The first is that people's eligibility for the scheme is founded, as we traversed earlier in sections 24 and 25, in one or both of those schemes. There will be, as a consequence of the act, a co-design process that determines rule making in relation to that, but eligibility and access to the scheme is not of itself changed. The provisions of the act in sections 24 and 25 do not change. If you were eligible under section 24 or section 25 last year, you would be eligible under sections 24 and 25 next year. There will be a process in the assessments under the scheme to ensure that people are in fact receiving supports that are consistent with 24 and 25—or 25, I should say. It is also the case that, within the growth of the scheme that the government has targeted, it is not the intention of the government to reduce the number of people in the scheme. The number of people who are in the scheme will presumably, if we are properly applying 24 and 25, increase over time as the population grows. I think any construction of that will mean that the number of people involved in the scheme will not fall away. But the assessment of whether you are eligible for supports in the scheme will be properly founded in 24 and 25, and the kinds of supports that participants receive will be clearly understood and also founded in 24 and 25. At the very least, because of the list that has been developed, there is some more clarity about what kinds of supports will be available under the scheme.