Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It won't come as a surprise to people, but the opposition will be supporting the substantive elements of the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022 because this bill actually gives effect to coalition initiatives when the coalition was in government previously.

At a very high level, let me just recap for people that this bill delivers on an election commitment of the former coalition government to increase the income limits for the Commonwealth seniors health card. The coalition at the time understood, as it does today, that that every dollar counts when older Australians are looking to meet what are escalating cost-of-living challenges for them and their families when they're no longer working. Senior Australians have worked very hard to make Australia all that it is today, and the coalition believes it's important that the country takes care of them in return. The coalition commitment is the first major change of indexation to the income threshold of the Commonwealth seniors health card in over 20 years, so we are grateful that the government has adopted the previous government's measure and brought it to the parliament for legislation.

It's worth noting that, during the election, Labor quickly adopted the coalition's policy, and Labor is shamelessly rebranding it as one of its own today. However, now we see the Albanese government has pushed the start date back beyond 1 July, the start date that was announced during their campaign. I think many Australians would see this as yet another Labor broken promise.

What this bill does is shine a light on another very pressing issue in our country at the moment, and one that the government has been slow to respond to. That pressing issue is the rising cost-of-living challenges in our country. That issue is compounded by the fact that there are severe labour shortages across our country. They are two issues compounding and working against each other and making life very difficult for older Australians. This is an opportunity this morning to do more for older Australians than the government is proposing, so I'm foreshadowing that the opposition will be moving amendments to this social security bill to make it easier to incentivise older Australians to go back into the workforce.

Many people will know anecdotally, from walking around their communities, that there are many older Australians who would like to work more but don't do so because the financial system as it currently operates significantly inhibits them from doing that. The amendments that we will be moving to this social security bill will do a number of things, and one is to raise the work bonus limit from $300 to $600 a fortnight. Older Australians and veterans today can only earn up to $300 a fortnight before they face a very harsh tax system that then punishes them for 50c in every dollar they earn over $300. The amendment that the opposition will be moving will lift that to $600 a fortnight, and we believe, as small businesses across the country believe, as associations for older Australians believe, this will be a significant improvement to incentivising this older Australians back into the workforce. Through our amendment, this will be a permanent measure, unlike other initiatives which I'll come to in a moment which are temporary measures. If this amendment is successful, it will be a permanent feature of the Work Bonus system and it will allow older Australians to come back into the workforce and, in doing so, alleviate those very, very real challenges that are being faced by small and medium-sized businesses across the country.

This is not a new issue. In fact, this issue has been top of mind for older Australians and top of mind for businesses for a very, very long time. Last week, the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee heard evidence from a whole variety of organisations across our country that reinforced the fact that more needs to be done by this government to alleviate labour shortage issues across our community and to better incentivise older Australians into the workforce. What does Treasury think about labour shortage issues in our country? Last week, officials from the Treasury said that 'labour shortages currently across the economy are quite severe'. The government's own Treasury officials are saying that labour shortage issues in our country are severe.

A month ago, the government had its Jobs and Skills Summit. Some people criticised it as a talkfest; other people were prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. So why is it that, a month later, this parliament has not yet seen the legislation that was going to give effect to what the government called 'one of its most immediate and urgent initiatives'? Where is it? It may well be that the legislation will appear in the House of Representatives today, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it has taken one whole month for the government to bring forward an initiative that it thinks will improve worker shortages and incentivise older Australians into the workforce.

People have got a right to ask: why is the government dragging its feet when older Australians are living with real cost-of-living challenges now? Why is the government dragging its feet on giving small businesses and medium-sized businesses in our economy the opportunity to hire local older Australians and veterans and start to fix those labour shortage issues immediately? Why are we waiting? By his own admission, the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said this week that cost-of-living challenges were skyrocketing. The Treasurer says that cost-of-living challenges in our country are skyrocketing, and, a month after the jobs summit, we still don't have any news of Labor's initiative that would help older Australians back into the workforce and, in doing so, alleviate labour shortage issues. That's why the opposition is stepping forward and is going to seek to amend the government's bill to import a mechanism that will provide cost-of-living relief immediately for older Australians and go some way to meeting those severe labour shortage issues that the Treasury thinks exist. We in the opposition believe that the best, most effective and most timely way to do that is to increase the Work Bonus scheme that currently exists in our social security arrangements by raising it from $300 a fortnight to $600 a fortnight, and we expect that will have a positive impact on attracting older Australians and veterans into the workforce.

Labour shortages in our country are widespread. This is what Grain Producers Australia had to say last week, noting the severe workforce shortages across our country:

We have got a massive pool of very skilled people out there that have … retired and that are willing to come back and help part time. They like job sharing and they don't like really long hours, but they are willing and able to contribute to our economy. If we look at the red tape and the complex superannuation laws and pension earning laws et cetera—

we can find a way to provide a better incentive for them to enter the workforce.

A key benefit of the opposition's initiative is that older Australians living in regional communities will be able to go and work in their regional cafe or petrol station or on their local farm and go some way to alleviating these labour shortage issues across our country. I suspect that the new Labor government are half hearted about giving older Australians the opportunity to enter the workforce and about correcting labour shortage issues in our country, and that's why their initiative from the job summit, which we still haven't seen in the parliament, is temporary and less generous than the coalition's. Wow! This is a bad way to start. The Treasurer is saying cost-of-living issues are real and severe and are skyrocketing. The Treasury is saying that labour shortage issues are severe. Why is the government waiting? The government could take the coalition's initiatives and amendments and put them in their own name, and we would have a partial solution to those issues immediately. We could leave this parliament this evening having given older Australians and small businesses a better solution. I will give way to other coalition senators who I know want to make a contribution, but the challenge now is for the government to step up, act now and provide an immediate solution for older Australians and small businesses.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll begin by foreshadowing that the Greens will be supporting the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022. We're supporting it because we believe that Australia needs a more generous income support system across the board.

I do note, however, that some submissions to the Senate inquiry raised concerns about the government's approach. ACOSS said that it was 'not well targeted' and that expanding the income test will not help those who are most in need. There were submissions, of course, that supported it. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said:

The ANMF supports the proposed changes to the Bill, particularly with regard to the positive health impacts it would have where the increased income test limits will allow more individuals access to relevant pharmaceutical and medical benefits, and lower GP co‐payments where applicable.

The Council of the Ageing were also supportive, saying:

COTA Australia supports the proposed lifting of the income limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card …

The Greens will support it as well. Clearly, enabling people who are of age pension age and aren't receiving other social security payments to receive some extra benefits is something that will be very much appreciated and of much value to people while the cost of living continues to increase. It's something that, given the struggles for people to survive and the increasing costs of living across the board, is of value.

But we continue to have a central concern that, while Labor—and, indeed, the Liberal Party, including with the amendments that Senator Smith has foreshadowed—have introduced policy proposals and bills in relation to age pensioners, there have not been enough proposals put forward to address the giant gaps in our social security system across the board for everyone who is trying to survive on income support. This bill recognises that older people with incomes of up to $90,000, in fact, need extra support through having access to a healthcare card, which will enable them to have access to the extended Medicare safety net and cheaper medicines under the PBS. It recognises that, even if you have an income of up to $90,000, you are not living in luxury and that having access to those extra benefits will help you deal with the increasing cost of living.

But that's for people with incomes of up to $90,000. How about thinking about other people in our community who are surviving on incomes way, way less than that—people surviving on JobSeeker, on youth allowance, on student allowance or on parenting allowance? The rate of JobSeeker is $47 a day, which adds up to an annual income of $17,155. The poverty line in Australia, the Henderson poverty line, has been re-established today. The Melbourne Institute have put out their three-month update of what the Henderson poverty line is. It's $88 a day, or $32,000 a year. That is what the Melbourne Institute, what the Henderson poverty line, says people in Australia need to not live in poverty. Here we are with this bill, recognising that people on incomes of up to $90,000 need extra support, yet we have got people absolutely languishing in poverty, not able to afford medicines, not able to put food on the table, not able to afford their rent—and not only people at risk but people who are homeless who are trying to survive on income support because they've been turfed out of their houses by increasing rent. We've got people who are struggling, who are ill because they can't afford medicines to treat their illnesses. We've got people who have undiagnosed illnesses because they can't afford the gap payments to see specialists to have diagnostic tests done.

I had a story shared with me recently of a student who was living on student allowance, who, despite surviving with dumpster diving and second-hand clothes and walking to his courses rather than catching public transport he couldn't afford, fell ill and could not afford to get the diagnostic tests done to determine what his illness was. He struggled and suffered, and took much longer to finish his studies because he was ill, because he had an undiagnosed illness. Then we had the wonderful experiment during the COVID crisis where we doubled the rate of income support and doubled the JobSeeker allowance, and suddenly people who had been struggling in poverty found they could afford to feed themselves. They could afford to use public transport. They could afford to go and get tests done. This student then got the test done, had their illness diagnosed, had surgery and got well. And now they are working and paying taxes.

This is what we need to be doing. We need to be supporting everybody in our community who is currently living on income support to live a decent life. We need a guaranteed liveable income for all. It's not just good for the individuals; it is good for our whole community. We need an overarching, complete, structured reassessment of our income support system, and we need to have everybody living above the poverty line.

So, yes, we will support this bill because it's going to make life easier for people who are struggling with the cost of living. We acknowledge that; that's why we're supporting it. But there are so many people who aren't going to have their poverty addressed by this bill. We have an appalling gap in the rate of payments between what people are struggling on and what they need to survive. People are being forced to rely on income support payments that are way below the poverty line. We will support this bill. It's a good step forward. We need to be increasing our rate of support payments but we need to be doing more. We call upon this government, and we will keep calling upon this government, to raise the rate of income support across the board.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank both the opposition and the Greens for their preliminary indication that they are supporting this legislation.

The bill gives more self-funded retirees access to the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, easing some of the cost-of-living pressures they currently face. The Commonwealth Seniors Health Card is available to Australians who have reached aged-pension age and are ineligible for income support payment due to their income and/or assets. Account holders gain access to Commonwealth health concessions, including concessional co-payments for Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme medicines and concessional thresholds for the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme safety net and the extended Medicare safety net. State and territory governments and some private entities may offer additional concessions at their own discretion.

The income limit for a person who is single will increase from the current $61,284 to a new limit of $98,054. This single income limit also applies to a person who is a member of an illness separated couple, a member of a respite care couple or a member of a couple whose partner is in jail.

The income limit for each member of a couple will increase from the current $49,027 to a new limit of $72,000. This means the Commonwealth seniors health card income limit for a couple will increase to $144,000 of combined income.

This bill was due to commence on 20 September 2022. However, due to the suspension of parliament following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II the bill could not be passed in time for the increase to be implemented on 20 September 2022, as was originally intended. As a result, the government will move amendments to allow the increase to the income limits to take effect seven days following the royal assent to the bill.

The Albanese government is committed, as we know, to easing cost-of-living pressures. This bill is a practical example that will support older Australians.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.