Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The committee is considering message No. 59 from the House of Representatives, relating to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representatives has disagreed.

(Quorum formed)

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

I want to make a few short points about the bill and to note that the Greens, who supported these amendments when we were considering the bill previously, won't be insisting on our amendments. As we know, the underlying component of this bill is to extend the availability of the Commonwealth seniors healthcare card. It has cross-party support. Everybody agrees to it.

The amendments to this bill that were moved when we last considered it included key provisions relating to the work bonus for age pensioners. I want to put on the record that, when there are good amendments from the opposition, we Greens are open to supporting those amendments where they improve the bill. In this case, we thought that they would improve the bill. We thank the opposition for putting forward an amendment to this bill that would have provided greater support to age pensioners, which is why we voted in support of those amendments. However, I recognise and thank the government for having introduced a workforce incentive bill in the other place since we last considered this bill. The provisions of that bill are currently being considered by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee. We are going to be listening very closely to stakeholder views on that bill that we hear through the inquiry. In relation to stakeholders who have engaged on this issue, I want to thank National Seniors Australia, particularly, for their advocacy on this issue of providing greater support to age pensioners and allowing them to earn more before their pension is reduced.

More broadly, I want to reiterate a point of made a number of times, particularly last night and today. We support changes that make it easier to access income support and to make income support more generous. We think that it's appalling that the government hasn't chosen to raise the rate of JobSeeker, because poverty is a political choice. It was a choice that the Liberal government made for a decade and is a choice that Labor is now making. So for everyone who is struggling to survive on an income support payment, whether it be on JobSeeker or the age pension, we hear you and we're going to keep on fighting and advocating for you.

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rice, I need to interrupt you. There's too much chitchat to my side. I need to ask senators to keep it down so that I can hear. Please continue.

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

However, given that we have the workforce incentive bill, which is now in the other place and largely overlaps with the measures introduced as amendments to this bill, the Commonwealth seniors healthcare bill, we think it is appropriate that we do not insist on our amendments.

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

The opposition will be insisting on the Senate's amendments. We have heard today—indeed, from Greens senators themselves—that the priority for this budget, the priority in the hearts and minds of Australian families, is the cost of living. Today we could insist on these amendments and send back to the House of Representatives an immediate remedy to some of the cost-of-living pressures that pensioners and veterans are experiencing in our community. Nothing demonstrates more than this the tardiness of the government is in acting on some of its own initiatives that would go to the heart of addressing labour shortages in many of our communities and of providing cost-of-living relief for pensioners and veterans.

Senator Rice is absolutely right. The government does have a bill in the House of Representatives at the moment. It was introduced in the House of Representatives on the last sitting day, 28 September, and it has not progressed. The government owes pensioners and veterans in our country an apology for not doing more on these sitting days in this budget week to help deal with labour shortage issues in our country, which would put downward pressure on inflation—let's remember that. Anything that can be done to ease Labor shortages in this country will put downward pressure on inflation, and Labor is ignoring an opportunity to do that now, to do that tonight. In the process, age pensioners and veterans are going to have to continue to endure cost-of-living pressures, with limited means to correct that for themselves.

This is outrageous. This is a powerful demonstration that the priorities of Australian families—with pensioners, with veterans—are not the priorities of this government. It is disappointing that on this occasion the Greens aren't able to support us. But, to be fair to Senator Rice and to other Greens, we were very grateful for the support you were able to give to the coalition when it moved the amendments on that sitting day in the last sitting week, because it shone a very important light on this issue.

So, while we have a point of disagreement today on this matter of whether we insist on the amendments, when we were in this Senate chamber on that afternoon of 28 September, guess who was caught asleep at the wheel? It was the government. You would think that, just six months into the job of being the new government, they would be alert, they would be attentive, they would be paying attention to what was going on and what was in the minds of pensioners and veterans in this country and that they would be offering up solutions, joining in some bipartisanship—joining in some tripartisanship, if I might add—and agreeing to those amendments, allowing them to go to the House of Representatives and providing an answer for age pensioners and for veterans. This is a sad, sorry day for the new government. In the government's own budget, delivered last night, is exactly this initiative. So, they're deciding to wait. They are going to make people wait—not one day, not two days; they are going to make people wait and wait and wait.

This afternoon, in previous conversations, we heard almost unanimous views in this Senate chamber, minus the government, that cost-of-living pressures are real and that the budget did not provide a solution. And now, at this time of the early evening, we've got a real, immediate opportunity to say to pensioners, to say to veterans and to say to the business community—not just in our cities, not just in our regional towns but also in our smaller communities across this country—that we know the pressures about labour shortages are real, we know that you need some answers, and here is some step towards providing those answers and providing those solutions. But no: the Labor Party has decided that it will come in here and make an attempt to not insist on these amendments. Wow. I just wonder how the Australian community will react to the realisation that at this particular point of this day we had an answer for age pensioners and for veterans and for small to medium business owners, and Labor squibbed it. This will come back to haunt the government.

As disappointed as we are, we have no argument with the Australian Greens. You understand the issues. You supported the amendments. You've now had a different attitude, given that a matter is now before a Senate committee. But there is no excuse, there is no apology that can be provided to the Labor government for not making the most of this immediate opportunity.

The CHAIR: The question before the committee is that the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representatives has disagreed.