Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

This bill delivers on the Government’s commitment to make bonus payments to carers and seniors in 2008. 

Seniors and carers will also be among the beneficiaries of a further measure in the bill, which will introduce a limited non-cancellation period for holders of concession cards, allowing people to keep their cards during short-term absences from Australia.

The Government values the role and contribution of carers, who make enormous personal sacrifices through their selflessness and hard work.  Our senior Australians, through a lifetime of effort, have laid the foundations of the prosperous nation we all have the privilege of calling home.

The Government understands that the rising cost of living is putting many Australians, especially seniors and carers, under increasing financial pressure.  The Government’s commitment to providing the bonus payments to carers and seniors is a modest measure to relieve some of this financial pressure.

A range of other measures introduced in the Government’s first budget, are also designed to address these cost of living pressures.  These include increased financial support, better services, and responsible economic management, which is addressing the challenge of rising inflation.

Bonuses for 2008 will be paid before the end of the financial year, and with no need for a claim.  As well as being tax free, the bonuses will not count as income for social security, veterans’ entitlements or family assistance purposes.

The first of the 2008 bonus payments provided by this bill is for older Australians.  Around 2.7 million older Australians will receive the 2008 bonus payment.  A one-off payment of $500 will go to each person of pension age, or veterans’ qualifying age, who is receiving an income support payment on 13 May 2008.  The same $500 payment will go to recipients at that date of mature age, partner or widow allowance, or wife or widow B pension.

Older Australians not actually receiving the relevant payment on that date will still get the bonus if they had claimed the payment by that date and later have their payment backdated to cover that date.

Self-funded retirees qualified for seniors concession allowance on 13 May 2008 will also get the 2008 bonus of $500.  The bonus will also go to people who are notionally qualified for seniors concession allowance on that date because they had claimed by that date a seniors health card and were later established as eligible for the card on that date.

The second of the 2008 bonus payments is for carers.  Carers receiving carer income support on 13 May 2008 in the form of a social security carer payment or carer service pension under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act will be paid a $1,000 one-off payment.  Carers who receive the non-means tested social security income supplement known as carer allowance in addition to either wife pension or partner service pension under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act will also be paid a $1,000 one-off payment.  Any carer receiving carer allowance will be paid a separate $600 one-off payment for each eligible care receiver.  Carers who have claimed the targeted payments on or shortly before 13 May 2008 and are subsequently granted those payments (with effect from 13 May 2008 or earlier) will receive the one-off payments.

Carers who claim carer allowance after 13 May 2008 and whose payment is backdated due to the application of the carer allowance backdating provisions will not be eligible for the bonus payment, even though the backdated period will have included payment for 13 May 2008.

The second major measure the bill introduces is a limited non-cancellation period for social security or veterans’ entitlements concession cards while the cardholder is overseas.  This means that cards will generally remain valid for up to 13 weeks, should cardholders leave Australia, which will make things easier both for cardholders and for Centrelink.

The new non-cancellation period will apply to the pensioner concession card, the Commonwealth seniors health card, and the health care cards that have previously had no provisions allowing overseas travel.

At present, card holders must be in Australia to retain their card, and so if they leave Australian on holiday their card must be cancelled even if they leave for a short period and even if the card has been automatically issued because it is linked to a primary income support payment that is portable during the trip.

While the card is generally not usable overseas, there are distinct benefits in keeping the card valid during short periods of absence.  Firstly, people will not have to go to the trouble and delay of re-claiming cards on their return, significantly reducing administrative costs and inefficiencies involved in cancelling and re-issuing cards within short timeframes.

Secondly, people will have the chance to use their cards right up to the day of leaving Australia and immediately after they return, especially to buy pharmaceuticals they may need.

Thirdly, the risk and confusion of having cancelled cards in circulation, often duplicating cards re-issued later, will be considerably reduced.

The new rules, allowing cards to remain valid for up to 13 weeks after the person leaves Australia (subject to any portability restrictions on the primary income support payment to which the card may be linked), will also apply to a card that is issued during the person’s absence because their payment or card claim is determined during the absence.

The new non-cancellation of cards rules will apply from 1 July 2008, making a significant improvement in concession card arrangements for all concerned.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It will come as no surprise to this chamber that the coalition will be supporting the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (One-off Payments and Other Budget Measures) Bill 2008. I would like to identify a number of issues that I believe the Senate needs to be aware of. This legislation has been introduced only after intense pressure brought by the coalition earlier in the year. The pressure arose from some senior-sourced reports in the Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald which said that the carers bonus and one-off bonus were going to be axed under the guise of fighting inflation. On 7 March, the Australian reported a senior source stating that payments would be scrapped. This made us—the party who care for carers and veterans—incensed, as were many veterans and carers.

When the government was challenged on this issue, there were no flat-out denials. There was some hedging. The Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Ms Macklin, refused to rule anything in or out in the budget, which was a great shame. I ask: if the government had been committed all along to paying these bonuses, why were these very well-sourced reports appearing in two credible journals, and why did the minister not say that the government was totally committed to paying the bonuses when she was given the chance?

I would like to make it absolutely clear that I believe, the coalition believe and the public believe that this government is paying these bonuses reluctantly. It is paying these bonuses because the coalition and the lobby groups out there were incensed and outraged at the callous heartlessness of the government in intending to cut them. These bonuses have been part of the former government’s policy platform for the past four years. When the current government reluctantly adopted the bonuses, it said that the bonuses were going to be committed for the future. Unfortunately, the budget papers make light of this story, because there is no assurance whatsoever in the budget papers that these bonuses are going to be paid in future years. So we are going to have to dance around this issue concerning those who are among the most vulnerable in our society every year until this government is prepared to put its hand up and say, ‘Yes, we are going to help carers, we are going to help veterans, we are going to help those on pensions alleviate the rising cost of living.’ While the pensioners of this country are doing it tough, this government is washing its hands of the issues that matter to them.

After four budgets where the Howard government paid these bonuses, the reluctant Rudd government has put them forward for only a single year. We certainly support this legislation. We believe that, in a very real sense, we are the original authors of this legislation. If not for us, this legislation would not be before this chamber right now. We are very pleased to have fought the good fight on behalf of the carers and pensioners of this country. I can assure them that we will not give up this fight. We will try to make sure that the Rudd government honours the commitments that are important to the preservation of the standards of living of those who do it so tough.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (One-off Payments and Other Budget Measures) Bill 2008 provides for one-off bonus payments to carers and seniors as announced in the 2008 budget. The Australian Greens support any measure to provide more assistance to these essential and valuable groups in our community. However, we have deep reservations about the approach of the one-off bonus payments and are very disappointed to see that the new government is continuing this approach. Once again we have a government that has failed to adequately address the real needs of pensioners and carers in our community. Both age pensioners and carers deserve so much more. They deserve a government that is prepared to take seriously the difficulties faced by seniors and carers trying to make ends meet on inadequate support in a time of rising inflation. They deserve a government that is prepared to make the necessary structural readjustments to adequately support people who make such an important contribution to our society.

I note that the government’s second reading speech on this bill acknowledges that the bonus payments are a modest measure, and indeed they are. Australia’s two million pensioners have been left out in the cold by this budget. The prospects of more than one million Australian pensioners getting help to meet the soaring costs of food, housing, utilities and transport have been buried in this budget. Pensioners are left on what is now a meagre $273 per week. The Australian Greens have been calling for a lift in the age pension of at least $30 a week. At the very least, the budget should have lifted the rate for single pensioners from 59 per cent to three-quarters of the pension for a couple. This issue was raised during the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs inquiry into the cost of living for older Australians. One of the key issues that came out of the inquiry was how difficult it is for single pensioners to survive on the pension that they get. That issue should be immediately dealt with.

While we, of course, welcome the changes to indexation and the increased utilities allowance, we do not believe that they go anywhere near addressing the inadequacies of the weekly pension and the comparison between the weekly pension and the increases in the cost of living and being able to provide a decent standard of living.

There has not been a substantial increase in the age pension since 1993. At a time when the government can hand out billions and billions of tax cuts and have a surplus of $20 billion, we think it is about time that it acknowledges that it can afford to increase the pension rate. The issues around the cost of living were reported on extensively in the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs report that was tabled in the last sitting of the Senate. That report very clearly identified the gap between the pension rate and the cost of living and the inability to have a decent standard of living if you are trying to survive on a pension. It recommended that the government carry out a review of the suitability of the base pension levels to look at what these levels should be raised to in order to provide for a decent standard of living. People will recall that the Greens, at that time, said that the government should have increased the weekly rate for the pension while it carried out that analysis, because it was not fair to keep people who we know were not able to meet the costs of living struggling to survive on the pension. In a decent society, you do not keep people struggling while you carry out another review. We believe that that rate needs to be increased and then looked at to see what it should be raised to in the longer term.

Turning to the issue of carers, I suspect that anybody who reads the media will know that the carers community are very disappointed. While they are, of course, pleased that the bonus has been included in the budget now, they are very disappointed that the other issues, as they relate to carers, have not been dealt with. These issues have been known about for many years, and we are still treating carers as if they were second-class citizens. I remind the chamber that carers have the lowest social wellbeing index in our community, and that is because of the work that they do. Not only does it cause them great financial stress but it also has a very strong impact on their physical and mental wellbeing. Carers save the economy more than $30 billion each year. That figure, I think, was from a 2004 report by Access Economics. That was nearly four years ago, and that figure will be substantially higher now. That report also very strongly highlighted the need to start planning for the increase in the number of people that will be requiring care in our community as our community ages. I do not see that planning in this budget either.

Carers who rely on Centrelink payments are still living on about $200 a week less than the federal minimum wage; 39 per cent of carers—which is almost one million carers—have as their primary source of income a government pension or allowance. Carers who are reliant on receiving the carer payment plus the carer allowance saw their income rise by less than 3.5 per cent in the year to March 2008. Over that same period, essential cost of living items such as bread, milk, rent and electricity rose by more than double that percentage increase. So not only were carers living on a very low income but it is now getting even lower. A group that provides so much support and that is vital to the running of our community is becoming even worse off. You would not think that that was possible.

As Carers Australia stated, we are ‘frankly stunned’ that the government failed to provide any future security and certainty for carers and merely repeated the Howard government’s approach of the bonus payment. This is after the ALP were critical of the approach while they were in opposition. Carers Australia also stated that carers are not the cause of inflation; they are the victims of it. They are not buying plasma TVs or designer clothes; they are struggling just to buy the essentials that they need to live and to care.

For all of the rhetoric around working families, this government has left these hardest working families in this country abandoned and devastated. This government has not addressed the fundamental issues that need to be addressed in terms of supplying a decent standard of living that enables these people to carry on the work that they do 24/7. I acknowledge that there has been an increase. There was an announcement of an increase in respite care, and that is appreciated as well. But, as many carers have pointed out to me, if we actually had a systematic and a strategic approach with all the proper provisions in place, they would not need as much respite care. So, we are treating the symptoms as usual; not the causes.

Anybody who saw the Four Corners program on Monday night can be left in no doubt as to the struggles and difficulties facing our nation’s carers. These difficulties include—and I have been through some of them already—inadequate income support, lack of sufficient and appropriate respite services, lack of coordination between federal and state governments in the provision of necessary services. For all the rhetoric around working families, this government has left these hardworking families in the lurch. One-off payments do not provide for the systematic change and ongoing support needed to properly care for our carers. That is what this is about—caring for our carers. We needed to see a genuine commitment to a better planned system in order to improve the financial security and financial future for our carers, backed up by strategies to keep carers in the work force. With the number of older people requiring care expected to dramatically increase, this is becoming, more and more, a critical and crucial issue.

We note the government’s announcement of an inquiry into how the needs of carers can be better met. While this is a welcome move that is appreciated, again, the same issue applies to the carers as to the pensioners. We cannot keep carers living in these same conditions while we keep reviewing these issues. These matters continue to get worse while we continue to review them. The carers have provided a very well-researched and presented document about what strategies are needed to address their issues—for example, a significant increase, in fact a doubling, in the carers allowance; providing for their superannuation needs; and being able to ensure better coordination between state and federal governments. And that coordination is needed not only between state and federal governments but between government agencies.

There must be action now, not some time in the future. And the government must, when it carries out this inquiry, be committed to actually following its recommendations. It is no longer acceptable that the government just keeps acknowledging these difficulties and does nothing to address them. Carers are of course appreciative of the fact that there will be this ongoing one-off payment, but it does not address the systemic issues that we need to address. We were looking to this government, which says it is looking after the most disadvantaged in our community and looking after working families, for action. These people are hardworking families. They did not get what they needed from this budget.

We will be supporting this bill because it gives something, and something is better than nothing; but it does not achieve the long-term change that is absolutely necessary to support pensioners and carers, who, as I said earlier, are absolutely vital to the wellbeing of our community. They are vital to the wellbeing of the people they look after, but we do not look after their wellbeing. It is an absolute tragedy that carers and a lot of pensioners are in the lowest category of the social wellbeing index. What does that say about our community and our country and how we care for the least fortunate in our community? It does not say a lot and we need to do better.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—Through the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (One-off Payments and Other Budget Measures) Bill 2008 the government acknowledges the role, contribution and sacrifice of carers, and the efforts made by senior Australians and our ageing veterans in laying the foundations of our nation, by making a further commitment of support. New one-off payments that are tax-free and not counted as income for social security, veterans entitlements or family assistance purposes will be paid to them, generally before the end of the financial year.

Older Australians will receive a one-off payment of $500 in 2008. Each person of age pension age or veterans qualifying age receiving an income support payment on 13 May 2008 will receive the payment, as will recipients on that date of mature age allowance, partner allowance, widow allowance or wife or widow B pensions. The bonuses will also go to self-funded retirees if they are, on that same date, qualified or notionally qualified for seniors concession allowance.

The separate one-off payment of $1,000 for carers will be made if they are receiving, on 13 May 2008, a social security carer payment or a veterans carer service pension. The $1,000 one-off payment will also go to carers who receive the non-means-tested carers allowance as well as either wife pension or veterans partner service pension. Any carer receiving carer allowance will be paid a separate $600 one-off payment for each eligible care receiver.

Another measure in the bill is aimed at significantly improving concession card arrangements by introducing a non-cancellation period for social security or veterans entitlements concession cards while the cardholder is overseas. This new limited period will allow cardholders who leave Australia for up to 13 weeks to retain their cards while overseas rather than having to cancel concession cards from the day of departure.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.