Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:

That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Amendment Bill 2010, Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences Against Children) Bill 2009, Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill 2010, Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care) Bill 2010, Social Security and Family Assistance Amendment (Weekly Payments) Bill 2010 and Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 1) Bill 2010, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings.

I table statements of reasons justifying the need for these bills to be considered during these sittings and seek leave to have the statements incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statements read as follows—

ANTARCTIC TREATY (ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION) AMENDMENT BILL

Purpose of the Bill

The bill implements amendments made to Annex II – Conservation of Antarctic Flora and Fauna – to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (the Environment Protocol) at the 32nd Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in April 2009. The amendments extend the protection of native flora and fauna to invertebrates; broaden the provisions for introduction of non-native species and diseases to include unintended introductions; and make minor editorial updates.

Reasons for Urgency

Australia engaged as a leading party in negotiations for creation and adoption of Measure 16 (2009) – Amendment of Annex II to the Environment Protocol. The ‘tacit consent’ provisions in Article 9 of Annex II provides that amendments will automatically become effective one year after the close of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting XXXII (i.e. on 17 April 2010), unless one or more of the Consultative Parties gives notification within the timeframe that it wishes an extension of that period, or that it is unable to approve the measure. Accordingly, unless a reservation is lodged by Australia within the timeframe, the agreed treaty amendments automatically enter into force for Australia one year after their adoption.

This constraint creates considerable pressure to complete work required for implementation into domestic legislation within this timeframe. As such, it is intended that domestic implementation be undertaken as a matter of urgency to avoid Australia having to lodge a reservation.

CRIMES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN) BILL 2009

Purpose of the Bill

The purpose of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Offences Against Children) Bill is to ensure comprehensive coverage of offences in areas of Commonwealth responsibility, including sexual offences against children overseas (child sex tourism) and online child sex related offences. The Bill will:

• strengthen the existing child sex tourism offence regime
• introduce new offences for dealing in child pornography and child abuse material overseas
• enhance the coverage of offences for using a carriage service (the Internet) for sexual activity with a child or for child pornography or child abuse material
• introduce new offences for using a postal service for child sex related activity
• introduce a new scheme to provide for the forfeiture of child pornography and child abuse material and items containing such material, and
• make minor consequential amendments to ensure existing law enforcement powers are available to combat Commonwealth child sex related offences.

Reasons for Urgency

The measures in the Sexual Offences Against Children Bill respond to issues raised by law enforcement agencies and reflect best practice approaches domestically and internationally. Ensuring that there is comprehensive coverage in this area will complement current Government initiatives focussed on protecting children, such as the Government’s Cybersafety initiative and development of a National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children. Recent arrests of Australians for involvement in international child exploitation networks highlight the need to do everything possible to address sexual offences involving children and to deter such offending.

ELECTORAL AND REFERENDUM AMENDMENT (CLOSE OF ROLLS AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2010

Purpose of the Bill

The Bill will implement the Government’s pre-election commitments to:

• restore the minimum close of rolls period for federal elections and referendums to seven days after the date of the writ; and
• repeal the requirement that provisional voters show evidence of identity at the time of voting or within five working days following an election.

The Bill will also implement three additional measures to facilitate greater electoral participation and greater efficiencies in the conduct of federal elections, by:

• modernising enrolment processes by enabling electors to update their enrolment details online;
• enabling pre-poll votes cast in an elector’s home division to be cast and counted as ordinary votes wherever practicable; and
• allowing the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to manage its workloads more efficiently by enabling enrolment transactions to be processed outside the division for which the person is enrolling.

All measures in the Bill implement recommendations of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters Report on the conduct of the 2007 federal election and matters related thereto.

Reasons for Urgency

Passage of the Bill during the 2010 Autumn sittings is necessary to maximise the prospects that the measures will be in place before the next federal election. Implementation of the Government’s pre-election commitments will ensure that new voters have sufficient time to be included on the electoral rolls for a federal election, and reduce the number of provisional votes rejected from admission to the vote at preliminary scrutiny (for the 2007 federal election, over 27,000 votes were rejected at preliminary scrutiny because provisional voters did not show evidence of identity). The Bill will also make it easier for electors to update their enrolment details, enabling online update as an alternative to the current requirement to submit a hard copy enrolment form. In addition, the Bill will enable the AEC to count a greater number of votes on polling night, and to manage its workloads in order to process enrolment transactions more efficiently.

FAMILY ASSISTANCE LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (CHILD CARE) BILL

Purpose of the Bill

The bill carries a proposal to address the recovery of $24.8 million in overpayments of Child Care Benefit (CCB) advanced to 4,390 child care service organisations (almost 50 per cent) prior to their transition to the Child Care Management System (CCMS). The bill also proposes changes to family assistance law that will alleviate issues raised by the child care sector and families in receipt of CCB around the requirement to provide four weekly statements that are having an adverse impact on child care services and those families.

CCMS was introduced under the Howard Government through the Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Management System and Other Measures) Act 2007. The majority of services completed the transition to CCMS in June 2009. The transition involved moving from monthly payment of CCB in advance to payment in arrears. This generated $142.5 million in overpayments to services. A flaw in the CCMS legislation precludes the recovery of $24.8 million of these overpayments. Processes are in place to recover the remaining $117.7 million from affected services. Approximately 50 per cent of child care organisations are being financially advantaged through this loophole.

Current legislation requires child care services to provide four weekly statements to families informing them of the amount of CCB they receive from the Australian Government. Many services already provide advice to families on their CCB entitlements through regular invoicing or receipting practices and have been providing families with this information on a weekly or fortnightly cycle. As a result, services are variously duplicating information by providing families with four weekly statements in addition to the information already provided. The financial and administrative burden is causing job losses and increased costs in order for services to be compliant, with at least one organisation cutting staff numbers to meet perceived costs. The proposed amendments will correct this situation and allow the provision of this information to be incorporated into existing practices.

The bill also provides for the payment and recovery of business continuity payments to provide support to child care services in those circumstances where they cannot receive regular payments under the family assistance law, through no fault of their own. A number of other measures continue to strengthen the child care compliance regime.

Reasons for Urgency

A large number of child care services are not providing the four weekly statements to families because families have refused to accept them. By complying with the wishes of those families, services are in breach of current legislation, accordingly, legislation around the obligation to provide four weekly statements must be simplified to remove duplicitous processing and its adverse affects on families and the child care sector.

Due to the complexity of transitioning services from one payment system to another, many services are not aware that they owe the Australian Government significant funds. With 4,390 child care organisations continuing to trade with a collective debt of $24.8 million that they are largely ignorant of, there is significant risk that further delay in initiating recovery action will place a large number of these organisations in financial difficulty when the recovery action is eventually commenced.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND FAMILY ASSISTANCE AMENDMENT (WEEKLY PAYMENTS) BILL

Purpose of the Bill

The bill would make Centrelink payments available weekly to the most vulnerable customers, including people who are homeless, thereby helping customers budget to meet their expenses more readily, as agreed to by the Government in the White Paper on Homelessness.

Reasons for Urgency

The measure addressed by this bill is intended to alleviate the hardships faced by the most vulnerable people in Australia and has been announced as a commitment of the Government. The bill would provide for weekly payments to a select group of extremely vulnerable people who find it difficult to budget their welfare payments over 14 days and, as a consequence, are often destitute in the second week.

This is a priority area for action and the people who may be affected, including people who are homeless, need the legislation to be passed urgently.

TAX LAWS AMENDMENT (2010 MEASURES NO. 1) BILL

Purpose of the Bill

The bill:

• amends capital protected borrowing provisions;
• allows Australian Managed Investment Trusts to treat gains and losses on disposal of eligible investments in shares, unit trusts and real property on capital account for taxation purposes;
• abolishes the capital gains tax (CGT) trust cloning exception and provide a limited CGT roll-over for fixed trusts;
• provides a capital gains tax roll-over for capital losses arising to complying superannuation funds that merge with non-small complying superannuation funds;
• changes thin capitalisation provisions arising from adoption of Australian International Reporting Standards and other thin capitalisation amendments;
• restricts the eligibility of the entrepreneurs’ tax offset through the introduction of a family income test;
• refines and clarify the rules in relation to consolidation and provide rules for the interaction between the consolidation regime and existing tax law provisions;
• changes the operation of Division 7A (of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936);
• gives effect to the Government’s 2008-09 Budget measure to provide funding for an optional superannuation clearing house service; and
• extends the tax file number (TFN) withholding tax requirements to closely held trusts and family trusts.

Reasons for Urgency

The bill contains four measures announced in the 2008-09 Budget and three in the 2009-10 Budget measures. The measures commence in the period from end-2008 through to mid-2010. Any delays in delivery will create uncertainty in respect of business and personal planning decisions. For example, in respect of the superannuation merger measure, a number of funds have indicated plans to conduct mergers in the near future; and in respect of the TFN measure, trustees of up to 400,000 trusts by 1 July 2010 have to put in place arrangements to withhold funds.