Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) and the President to questions without notice asked by Senators Humphries and Troeth and the Leader of the Australian Greens (Senator Bob Brown) today relating to the age pension.

We have heard some interesting answers today from Senator Evans and others as to why the government believes that the introduction of the Urgent Relief for Single Age Pensioners Bill 2008 in the Senate is unconstitutional. Both Senator Evans, as the leader, and I tabled, or attempted to table, advice on opposing sides of this question. The advice that Senator Minchin received from the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans, as I mentioned in my question, said:

There is no barrier to the introduction of such a bill in the Senate and a bill to increase the rate of age pension does not need to contain an appropriation of money.

Mr Evans goes on:

Bills which involved increased expenditure from appropriations which have already been made or will be made in the future are commonly introduced in the Senate. Such bills have originated in the Senate since 1901.

And I think Senator Brown mentioned that the right of the Senate to initiate such bills was expounded in a ruling by President Givens in 1921. That was a long time ago, but since then many government bills have fallen into that category. I further quote from the letter from the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Evans:

To choose one example from 2007, the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Bill 2007, initiated in the Senate, extended pharmaceutical benefits in respect of prescriptions issued by optometrists. The explanatory memorandum accompanying the bill noted that money had already been appropriated to cover the additional costs to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Because the bill did not appropriate the extra money required for its operation, it was not an appropriation bill and therefore could be initiated in the Senate. There are several other such examples of government bills in recent times.

Further to his remarks in answering my question, Senator Evans maintained that pensioners were not impressed by stunts. Our move is not a stunt; it is a genuine attempt to address the economic hardship that is being felt by single age pensioners in comparison to age pensioner couples in recognising the fact that single pensioners, largely living by themselves, still have to pay many of the costs associated with housing, utilities and so on, in keeping up their standard of living. Both the Prime Minister and Ms Gillard have agreed that they could not live on the single age pension.

Senator Evans maintains that the government is taking on serious policy work. In the 164 reviews and committees commissioned by this government, why is the safeguarding of some of the most vulnerable people in our community, who have no other recourse for their economic livelihood, not regarded as serious policy work? Why are they waiting until at least the next budget to look at that as a serious policy issue?

It is not true that those on this side of the chamber, the opposition, did nothing. To give you an example, we linked age pensions to 25 per cent of male total average weekly earnings and legislated that the age pension be set at at least 25 per cent or increased by CPI, whichever was the greater. As a result, the maximum single rate of pension is now $1,892 per annum higher than it would have been otherwise. We also legislated to maintain pensions at two per cent a year above the rate of inflation.

What we are calling for is perfectly reasonable. The increase of $30 per week in our bill will have the effect of increasing the rate of the single age pension to two-thirds the rate of the couple age pension. As well, from 20 September, with this increase the single age pension will increase to $311.05 per week. The base rate of the couple age pension will not change. If we introduce this now, this measure will cost up to $1 billion until the end of the current financial year and it will increase pension payments for over 850,000 single age pensioners. (Time expired)

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in response to the motion to take note of answers today. We can stand in this chamber and debate ad infinitum whether the House of Representatives is a more superior place in this building than the Senate, but in reality, if you look at the Constitution, section 53 clearly says:

Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate.

That is the basis of the advice which the Clerk of the House of Representatives has provided to the Labor Party and we have legal advice to that effect. But let us not detract from that debate in this place today. Senator Troeth stood up and said that trying to increase the pensioner rate for single pension recipients only is not a political stunt. It clearly is. The way in which it is clearly a political stunt is that one day you announce you are going to extend this increase for single pensioners, and then you get a bevy of letters across the country from carers, from people with disabilities and from veterans associations questioning this. On 11 September the Vietnam Veterans Association questioned Brendan Nelson on the review of the veteran pension rates. They said that he had failed in this attempt to promise increased pension rates. So less than 24 hours later, this coalition—the would-be, ‘wannabe’ government of this country—says: ‘Oh gosh! Heavens! We’ve been lobbied by veterans associations across the country, so let’s include them in the loop as well.’ What does it say about pensioners who are on a disability allowance? What about people who are on a carers allowance? And what about those pensioners who are on a married rate? Don’t they matter to the coalition? Doesn’t the coalition care about them at this point in time? Is this a stunt? Absolutely this is a stunt!

This purports to award an increase to some people who would be gathering this allowance and this pension, but not others. It fails to look at the intricate costs, the CPI increases and the link to other allowances across the system. This is simply window-dressing a problem that was never substantially tackled by the opposition in 11 long years. If you do a search on ParlInfo then you will find that Senator Coonan mentioned the word ‘pensioner’ once in this chamber in 2007—only once did that word ever cross her lips in this chamber. Why didn’t she support, in cabinet, an increase to the pensioner rate? Why did she overturn the then minister, Minister Brough, when that proposal was put up? Why don’t those people come into this chamber now and explain why, in fact, in cabinet they could not support an increase in the pension rate, but now they want to push through this legislation in the Senate? This legislation has been done on the run, obviously without consultation and obviously not looking at the broad income support recipients who would miss out on this: 1.1 million age pension couples do not benefit from this stunt; 732,000 disability support pensioners will not benefit from this stunt; 130,000 people getting a carer payment are locked out of this stunt.

The Labor Party have said: ‘We’ll tackle this hard public policy debate. We’ll have a look at the connection between these allowances and the CPI increase.’ When we make a response, following the review, it will be a comprehensive response that looks after all people in receipt of this allowance—not just a very small category of recipients for a very short moment in time just because this coalition decides that it needs to get a bit of relevance. It has changed leaders in the past week, it has changed its front bench in the past week, but it has no positive policies. The only thing that this opposition can seek to do is rush through legislation in a house that is not entitled to do such a thing. If you have a look at the number of people who stood up to defend the legislation, you will find there was only one person on their second reading debate speakers list. So if this were such a great public policy emanating from the now opposition, you would think they would be lining up their backbenchers to support this and justify it. And they cannot. (Time expired)

Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers again—having spoken to the single age pensioner legislation only last week—because I am absolutely staggered at the continued accusations of those on the other side of the chamber who continue to suggest that not only is this a political stunt but it is also an indecent assault on the process of this good chamber. With respect to Senator Crossin, Mr Deputy President, I would suggest that one of the strengths of what we do and our responsibilities is to consult with our constituents and to respond to what their needs are in the community.

Since I rose in the chamber last week to speak on the legislation, my phone lines have been in meltdown because older Australians are absolutely outraged by the continued disdain that the government shows. This has continued since the passage of the bill from this chamber yesterday. It is now sitting at the steps of the House of Representatives because they will not prioritise it, they do not consider it to be important and they are not putting it on their agenda. It is an absolute disgrace and it is a sure sign of the static way in which this government manages the affairs of this country.

I have to respond to some comments that Senator Crossin just made in relation to her suggestion that the Howard-Costello government did nothing for 11 years. On the contrary—you cannot rewrite history by making it up on the run. The figures and statistics stand up for themselves and you cannot rewrite history. The Howard-Costello government were concerned about the capacity of pensioners to cope with the daily inflationary pressures that they were facing. And so accordingly pensions were raised two per cent on average over that 10- to 11-year period. The Howard-Costello government, given the surpluses generated through their conservative financial management of this country, determined that they would give one-off payments to pensioners of $500 per annum to help defray increasing costs in utilities—whether it was energy, gas, telephone bills, but a one-off payment was given—to ensure that they had increased capacity to deal with costs that they were feeling the pinch from.

They also initiated the Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiry into the cost of living pressures on older Australians, the conclusions of which were only brought down in March of this year. It is interesting to note that the conclusions and the findings of that committee were brought down under the Rudd government. The conclusions include the fact that there were significant demographic changes occurring in our country and that by 2042 one-quarter of all Australians would be 65 and over. So even blind Freddy would realise that the labour market will become more static over time, that there will be a slowdown in economic growth and that in actual fact there will be fewer people in the workforce who will be able to pay the taxes that will be able to help support older Australians and in turn those pensions.

As I mentioned last time, in Deakin, an electorate where I am a patron senator, there are 6,243 single pensioners. In Chisholm, where Anna Burke is the Labor member, there are some 6,142 single pensioners. They do not want a Labor government that is not looking after them. They are all desperately in need of this support, and we seek the passage of this bill into the House of Representatives so it can be dealt with in an expeditious manner.

Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to address the three issues attached to the discussion which seem to be having some prominence. Firstly, the constitutional background to the passage of the bill, if it should be passed in due course; secondly, the issue of precedent in terms of bills that have been passed in previous years in this place on one or two occasions, having originated in the Senate and hence being cited as precedent; and, thirdly, the utility or merit of the content matter of the bill that is going to be considered by the House of Representatives, as I understand it, sometime this week.

Firstly, let us turn to the constitutional basis of the bill—if the bill were to be passed, if it were to become an act of the Australian parliament and if it were to be challenged in the High Court in due course—and whether it is a lawful bill or would be a lawful act of the Commonwealth parliament. We are very, very clear on that position. We have said from the outset that in our mind there is no power in this chamber to initiate the passage of a money bill. We say that because section 53 of the Constitution, which Senator Crossin referred to earlier, clearly states:

Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate.

Clearly, we say, it is a logical conclusion from that that a bill to institute a pension payment or to increase a pension payment would need to be paid for out of revenues. Therefore, an increase in a pension payment will require the Commonwealth to spend extra funds, extra moneys, and the only way to do that is to increase the amount appropriated from consolidated revenue. The explanatory memorandum circulated with the bill clearly states that the financial impact of the bill at this stage is something in the order of $1.45 billion. Indeed, the clause of the bill headed ‘Objects’ also clearly states:

… the objects of this Act are to:

(c)

increase the single age pension, single age service pension and the Widow B pension by $30 per week …

So we simply regard it as a matter of absolute logic that, if you are attempting to increase a pension payment paid by the Commonwealth under law to recipients and you are increasing the amount, that is by definition an appropriation, and appropriation measures may only be initiated in the House of Representatives and not in the Senate. On that basis we say that if the matter were ever challenged in the High Court it would be ruled to be invalid and hence is likely to be ruled constitutionally flawed.

Let us now turn to the proposition raised by Senator Troeth in her contribution where she said there was precedent in this place for initiating money bills, and she particularly referred to the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2007. There are two points to be made in respect of that bill. Firstly, just because something has been done in the past does not make it correct, does not make it have legal standing; it is just something that has occurred in the past. But, more importantly, we suggest to Senator Troeth that the bill passed then and the bill passed yesterday are fundamentally different.

The 2007 bill only changed the way prescriptions could be prescribed by allowing optometrists to write scripts. An additional person within the medical community was given authority to write scripts. This changed administrative arrangements, not items on the PBS. Nothing else was added that allowed extra expenditure. It simply changed administrative arrangements and was not funded from a standing appropriation. As I said earlier, the opposition’s pensions bill clearly states that it has a financial impact of almost $1.5 billion a year, funding from a standing appropriation. Therefore, the situations in the two bills are in no way analogous. A proper analogy with the 2007 pharmaceutical bill would be, for example, a bill allowing pensioners to claim the pension through the Taxation Office and not through Centrelink. (Time expired)

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know whether Senator Bishop was a lawyer in a former life, but if he were I can see why he is now in the Senate and not at the bar somewhere or working as a solicitor, because I have never heard such a load of dross in my entire life. Let us examine briefly section 53 of the Constitution. It says:

Proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys, or imposing taxation, shall not originate in the Senate.

It is very clear. Does this bill passed last night by the Senate impose taxation? What is it taxing? Is it taxing cars, haircuts or plane trips? Is it taxing anything? It is, of course, taxing nothing. Therefore, it is not a bill imposing taxation. Is it a bill which appropriates revenue or money? Maybe, according to Senator Bishop, it is, but not according to the advice which the Senate has received from the Clerk. I quote into the record what that advice says:

A bill to increase the rate of age pensions does not need to contain an appropriation of money.  Age pensions, and other entitlements under the Social Security Act 1991, are automatically paid under a special appropriation of indefinite duration and unlimited amount in section 242 of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999.  Any increase in pensions is paid for under that appropriation without any necessity for any further appropriation to be made.

That is absolutely and abundantly clear. I am not rising in this take note debate to debate the legislation and the constitutional basis on which it is moved, because I sit here and I cannot help but wonder what ordinary Australians, particularly senior Australians who are in receipt of age pensions, would think about the tenor of this debate.

These people are not interested in a constitutional debate about whether the Senate does or does not have power to pass such legislation, because these people believe—no, these people know—that the Australian parliament has the ability to solve the problem that they are facing. It is the problem of having mounting bills, mounting grocery bills, mounting energy costs and increasing costs to fill their cars. They know that these problems are fixable by the Australian parliament or by the Australian government. They look to us to solve that problem.

To demonstrate that we understand the concern that they have, we accept our responsibility to provide a decent standard of living for those Australians who have worked hard to put us and a younger generation in a position of being able to afford a very comfortable standard of living across this nation. They expect us to look after them in their retirement. They cannot go out there and get other jobs to supplement their income or to increase their assets in some way.

The 950,000 single age-pensioner Australians, a group that Senator Crossin described as ‘a very small category of recipients’—it is a strange notion of ‘small’ if you ask me—are dependent on the generosity of the Australian government and the decisions of the Australian parliament as to how their standard of living operates and how much of the wealth of this country they enjoy. It is obvious and patently clear to anybody who has examined these issues, including those senators who took part in the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs inquiry last year and at the beginning of this year, that action on those issues is overdue and urgent. That is why the Senate last night passed legislation to deal with the issue.

It is, frankly, repugnant that today the government should be rising in this place arguing the toss about the constitutional basis on which such action to deal with that issue should proceed. I do not care whether the Senate has the power or not to solve this problem. The elected government of Australia has the power to solve this problem, and it should do so. It should accept that it has a problem because it raised this issue as a problem only in August last year when it moved for this inquiry to be conducted by the Senate community affairs committee into the cost-of-living pressures on older Australians. They understood then that there was an issue and they should understand now when they occupy those benches opposite that that issue has not gone away in the meantime. In fact, it has got much worse with rising costs.

So what are they going to do about it? Forget the constitutional arguments. What are they going to do to fix the problem that older Australians face today? (Time expired)

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Humphries is right on the mark and I agree with him totally. The questioning of the constitutionality of the passage of the pensions bill from the coalition, supported by the crossbench, through this chamber last night is a political diversion away from the need for the government to take action to increase pensions and to ameliorate the very hard times that pensioners—not least single pensioners—are having to make ends meet as costs rise right across the board.

The prospect of a constitutional showdown over this bill is neither edifying nor a good way for the government to be treating this parliament. The government should, if it wishes to block the Senate’s legislation for an increase in pensions, simply use its numbers to prevent that debate taking place on the floor of the House of Representatives and then accept responsibility for that action. Its effort to simply say, ‘We cannot take this debate on because there is a constitutional flaw,’ is in my books a red herring. It is entirely unnecessary. We have the advice of the Clerk of the Senate in the letter he wrote to Senator Minchin. And it is compelling evidence that since the 1920s, if not earlier, serial Presidents have ruled on the validity of bills such as the bill passed by the Senate last night because provision is made for appropriation for matters like pensions—and there are the other examples cited of payments through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and legislation from time to time to alter pensions or the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme—to originate in the Senate because the appropriation is available under the original enacting legislation.

I notice that the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Mr Harris, had this to say on The World Today on ABC Radio today:

There are very severe doubts as to the constitutionality of this bill. My belief is that a bill of this kind should not have originated in the Senate.

On the legal component of that statement, it is not good enough for the Clerk to have a belief. The Clerk should produce the argument and the rationale behind that belief, as the Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans, has done for the members of this place and indeed the wider public, who are no doubt taking an increasing interest in this matter.

When the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Mr Harris, says that his belief is that a bill of this kind should not have originated in the Senate, I do not think there is a senator who would disagree. It should have originated in the House of Representatives and it should have come from the government. But the fact is it did not. It did not because this government has failed to take up the public feeling of the moment, not least, according to Senator Evans’s figures, from some 3.7 million pensioners who want an increase in their pensions.

The reality is, as I have said a number times in debate, that the government had no trouble in its budget in May, with no reference to committees, no inquiries—nothing at all—passing legislation for $31 billion in tax cuts over four years. If it can do that, it can raise pensions for a couple of billion dollars to have the neediest people in our community a little bit better off.

Question agreed to.