Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Democrats oppose schedule 1 in the following terms:

(1)    Schedule 1, items 9 to 13, pages 6 (line 22) to page 7 (line 12), TO BE OPPOSED.

I spoke to the Democrat amendment to some extent in the second reading debate. I will not go on at length, given the legislative load that the Senate is dealing with. The Democrats are proposing that items 9 to 13 of the legislation be removed. This is the section of the legislation which makes the child disability assistance payment subject to income management, or quarantining, as it is called. According to the explanatory memorandum, the child disability assistance will be treated in the same way as carers allowance for the purpose of income management, relating to child protection, school enrolment, attendance and the Queensland commission—which is about the Cape York welfare reform trials, as I understand it, and which I think does not yet exist under law, but that is another matter. I do not want to get into the blame game about that.

As the new child disability assistance is an annual lump sum payment, 100 per cent of it—that is, $1,000—will be subject to income management under the rules relating to the Northern Territory. I accept that that does make it consistent with how other lump sums to do with family tax benefit et cetera are treated. There is an argument for consistency under social security law—I appreciate that—but, as I said in my second reading contribution, I think we need to see a bit more about how well the income management regime works before we start lumping every payment in there, particularly as it is 100 per cent of it. I think it is no small irony that the government is saying that they are providing this payment and quite rightly pointing out that it provides maximum flexibility for families to decide for themselves how to use this payment in a way that will meet the needs of the child that they are caring for, and yet it is subjected to income management, which is specifically designed to reduce the choice available to a person.

I appreciate that you do not want any carer to grab a thousand bucks and spend it on the pokies or buy a thousand bucks worth of grog or whatever, but that is obviously a potential that is open to anybody in the country. Given that, particularly for people in the Northern Territory who are currently subject to the income management regime, there are no criteria in place—not even a pretence of a criterion—these people are deemed to have been shown to not be as good as they could be at caring for their child. It is a blanket provision—everybody has their income being managed—so I do not think you can make the case that this is a group of people that has been found to not be as good as they should be at being parents, so we will help them with their income. That does not apply in the Territory; this is for everybody—all Aboriginal people in those communities. To me, it is inconsistent with the stated intent of the lump sum payment, which is to give people maximum flexibility to decide for themselves.

As I think was mentioned in the second reading speech from the government, the payment will help carers to purchase the form of assistance that best suits the needs of their family. Well, yes, it will, except for those under income management. Presumably a Centrelink officer, or somebody, will be telling them, ‘Yes, you can’ or ‘No, you can’t’—that is the potential, anyway. It depends a bit on how that pans out, in terms of flexibility, and we do not know about that in a lot of detail yet. The Democrats believe that, particularly for a payment that is meant to provide maximum flexibility for a carer to decide for themselves what they should spend the money on to help the needs of the child, to on the one hand introduce that for maximum flexibility and choice and, at the same time, saying, ‘For this chunk of people’—Aboriginal people in the Territory—‘no, we’re going to constrain your choice through this other mechanism,’ is I think contradictory.

It will be interesting to see over time, and it is probably too early to tell, how some of these areas will be of assistance to children. I do not want to revisit the whole wider debate, but one of the problems—and it is certainly an issue that comes up often with regard to carers—is: ‘We can only get this type of assistance’ or ‘We only get the subsidy for this sort of assistance; the government has decided what’s needed for our child. Maybe that is what’s needed for most children, but we are convinced that our child is different and we want this type of assistance, but we’re not eligible for assistance for that.’ To use the autism spectrum example again, that is a real issue for some. They can only get some types of supports and not others and it does not suit their child, and they are either forced to take the type of assistance that does not actually suit or they have to pay full bucks, with no assistance at all, for another type of support that is not recognised as being valid. That is always something in the whole health field that you have to balance when you are looking at taxpayer funded assistance for subsidies or support—I appreciate that. That is never easy, but that is the whole point of these sorts of thousand-dollar payments: the parent knows best and we are letting them decide. Then, with income quarantining or income management, we are saying, ‘Well, no, actually you don’t know best’—particularly when that is something that applies across the board, to everybody, purely on the basis of where they live, and certainly some believe it is on the basis of their skin colour. I do not think that is a terribly good precedent or practice, certainly at least until we see how it operates. That is the rationale behind the Democrats’ amendment. Because of the time of day, I will not divide on it, but I thought it would be appropriate to raise those points and some of those concerns.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Bartlett has indicated, the change proposed by government is to treat the disability assistance payment in the same way that other payments are being treated under the Northern Territory intervention legislation. We treat this measure in the same way that we treated those measures. We strongly support the principle that family payments, whatever they might be, should be paid for the benefit of children. We also support an income management system that provides the essential elements that a child needs to grow up in a healthy, happy and safe environment. We therefore also support the quarantining of welfare payments with the provisos that they should not be open-ended and they should not be arbitrary. It must target only parents who are putting their children at risk. After examining the proposal and assessing Senator Bartlett’s amendment, Labor will not be supporting Senator Bartlett’s amendment because the proposal from the government is consistent with those principles. Therefore, we support the child disability assistance measure being treated as other social security payments were treated in the legislation we debated in the last sitting.

While I am on my feet—and I am very mindful of the time—I have to respond to Senator Colbeck’s allegations. Senator Colbeck told only part of the story. Let us be very clear. The original offer from the Commonwealth to the states was that there would be no increase on the base CSTDA multilateral agreement. The only increase that was offered was a very small indexation which, as we identified during the inquiry, does not meet the increase in costs of delivering the current services. Many witnesses to the inquiry said that it is in fact a cut. That is the first fact.

The second fact is that, earlier this year, Minister Brough offered the states dollar-for-dollar funding for supported accommodation. That was on a bilateral basis outside of the multilateral negotiations. States were told to go back to their treasuries, find new money and come back to the Commonwealth with an indication of what money they could provide to match the government on a dollar-for-dollar basis. In the original correspondence and in messages to the states through the negotiations there was no indication of a cut-off or closing date for those applications to be received.

So, Senator Colbeck, it is disingenuous in the extreme and part of the classic blame game to say that your state did not even respond to the letter. The rules changed halfway through the game. On 4 July this year, the minister withdrew the offer, but the original offer did not say that it would close on any certain date. I put on the record that it is disingenuous of you to say, ‘My state didn’t even answer.’ You do not know what your state was doing from the time the letter was originally received till there was a bolt from the blue on 4 July saying, ‘Sorry, the deal’s now off.’ That is what happened. And for you to accuse me of engaging in the blame game, while telling only part of the story, is disingenuous. I do hope that that is the end of the debate.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, I know that those comments were made through the chair.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting the Democrats’ amendment. The income management regime has been put into place for a reason. The government’s view is that it should not matter whether or not the child has a disability; the intent is still that the funds are meant for the child’s welfare and that they are used for that purpose.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate that this is a lunchtime debate and I know, Senator Colbeck, that this is not your specific portfolio and you may not be able to answer this, but I would like to ask just one question with regard to that matter. Clearly, people will be entitled to that $1,000 lump sum payment and—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This should not be in non-controversial.

The Temporary Chairman:

Senator Carr, I cannot hear Senator Bartlett.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

’Non-controversial’ can mean different things in different contexts, Senator, although feel free to move to take it out of non-controversial if you want to.

Let me start again. Senator Colbeck, you are saying that the intention is to make sure that people entitled to that $1,000 as a lump sum spend it on the child’s welfare. I guess there is one thing I would like to establish. As I understand it, the income management regime has a list of things that people are able to spend money on—necessities, for want of a more precise term. Will people actually need to check what they spend this $1,000 on? If they want to buy some counselling or some therapy for their child, will they need to go to Centrelink and say, ‘I want this therapy; is that okay?’ Or is it a given that they can spend it on therapy and will not need to go and check with Centrelink about the type of therapy it is and whether or not it is appropriate for that child—those sorts of things? You can take that on notice if need be. I appreciate that it is not your portfolio.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can indicate to you, Senator Bartlett, through the chair, that, in all of the measures, individuals discuss their financial commitments and required expenditure with Centrelink and consideration will be given by them to medical or care requirements as part of the process. If you want any further information, I am happy to take that on notice for you, but there is a requirement for the commitment of required expenditure with Centrelink as part of the management process.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that schedule 1, items 9 to 13 stand as printed.

Question agreed to.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.