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senate vote 2022-09-28#5
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2022-09-30 09:59:13
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Title
Bills — Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022; in Committee- Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022 - in Committee - Put the question
Description
<p class="speaker">Glenn Sterle</p><p>The committee is considering the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill 2022 and amendments (3) and (8) on sheet 1643 moved by Senator Cash. The question is that the amendments be agreed to.</p> <p class="speaker">Dean Smith</p><p>So we are at the end of the day back where we were at the beginning of the day. The matter before us is the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Lifting the Income Limit for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card) Bill. At the outset, I think it's very important to restate the coalition's position, and that is that we support the substantive matter that is in this bill in large part—actually, in 100 per cent part—because it is the coalition's initiative carried over from the previous government and now adopted by this government. Congratulations to the new government for bringing forward what was a coalition initiative. Indeed, I think Senator Ruston, as the then social services minister, was responsible for that.</p><p>We would hope that the same level of spirit, the same level of foresightedness, shown by the government in regard to this matter will now be shown in regard to amendments that the coalition is bringing to this bill. These are amendments that don't subtract from the substance of this bill but will make the bill better and, more importantly, will deliver much-needed cost-of-living relief to age pensioners and, in doing so, will provide an immediate remedy to the many small and medium-sized business across our country, whether they are in capital cities or regional locations, that are suffering from labour shortage issues.</p><p>The amendments that the opposition has tabled and that we would like to see adopted today do three things. Schedule 1 of the amendments deals with the suspension of benefits and entitlements instead of cancellation. Let's call it a red-tape reduction initiative that many, many senior Australians will and have embraced. The second schedule extends the qualification for pensioner concession cards, an idea that older Australians enthusiastically embrace. Most importantly—and I suspect this is the reason that the government is wanting to delay a vote on this—it brings and puts into the law tonight the initiative that will increase the work bonus for pensioners, lifting it from $300 a fortnight to $600 a fortnight and, in doing so, removing the financial penalty that older Australians incur when they move beyond the current $300 a fortnight work bonus limit.</p><p>This is an initiative that many people across our country are calling for. They've called for it in Senate committees. They've called for it in dialogue with members of parliament across our country. In the last minutes of parliament today—remembering that the next parliamentary sitting day is actually the day of the budget, which is over a month away—Labor could send a very clear message tonight that it wants to provide older Australians with cost-of-living relief and that it has understood and will treat with urgency those very real labour-shortage issues that businesses are facing across our country.</p><p>I asked Senator Farrell this morning whether the government had yet brought forward legislation to give effect to its Jobs and Skills Summit initiative—a Jobs and Skills Summit that happened on 1 and 2 September. Today is 28 September—so, almost a month before the government could get its act together and introduce its own bill to provide relief to older Australians and to provide a remedy to those labour shortages across the country, but not the same bill, because Labor's bill is temporary. Labor thinks it only needs an answer that will last until 30 June next year. It says, by definition, that our labour-shortage issues will expire on 30 June next year. We know that's crazy. I'm sure Senator Lambie in Tasmania knows about real cost-of-living pressures on older Australians in Tasmania as well as very real, severe, acute labour shortages being felt across our country, probably more pronounced in Tasmania.</p><p>What I can't understand is that by Labor's own admission today in the House of Representatives it is saying that there is a problem with cost-of-living pressures. They're saying that there is a problem with labour shortages. But they're expecting our country, our parliament, to wait for another month, which makes it two months since the jobs summit, when tonight they could put in law a more generous and more permanent remedy. This is what Labor's social security minister said in the House of Representatives this morning: 'It's been widely reported across the country and understood by this government'—that is, the Labor government—'that businesses across Australia are experiencing skill and labour shortages. ' I don't disagree—tick, Ms Rishworth, the Minister for Social Services. She says that those labour shortages are constraining productivity and economic growth—tick; that's two out of two. We agree. Then she says, 'Implementing a range of policies designed to address labour market issues across the country is important.' We agree with that as well—three ticks. So why, Senator Farrell, will you not support these amendments, brought by the opposition, before you? Why will you not support them? Why are you saying to older Australians and small businesses, 'We want you to wait another month'? 'We've had a Jobs and Skills Summit, we've got a lot of positive media and now we want you to wait two extra months.'</p><p>On this matter, the coalition will happily sit down and have nothing more to say if Senator Farrell is about to get on his feet and say, 'You're right: older Australians deserve a remedy now; small businesses deserve a remedy now.' If that is the contribution Senator Farrell is about to make, this might end up being the most productive day this Senate chamber has seen for a very long time. The time is now, Senator Farrell. The time is now, Senator Pratt. This is the opportunity.</p><p>I hope that when Senator Farrell gets to his feet he will do three things. I hope he will explain why Labor's measure is temporary, explain why Labor's measure is less generous and say to the Senate: 'Yes, you're quite right. Let's do something now. Let's do something immediately. Let's make this a high-water mark of these last three sitting days.' I don't know if that is a challenge that Senator Farrell can live up to. I'm hoping it is.</p><p>In a contribution earlier today, the Australian Greens said that—I'm paraphrasing Senator Rice—this was an important first step. They did not say it was the only step. They said it was an important first step in bringing relief to older Australians to help deal with their cost-of-living pressures and also to address labour shortages. Remember this. This week, Jim Chalmers, the Treasurer, said that cost-of-living pressures were skyrocketing. That's not my word. It's Jim Chalmers's word: skyrocketing.</p><p>Senator Farrell is going to filibuster so that those skyrocketing cost-of-living pressures for older Australians—he's saying that older Australians can wait another month. They've already waited one month, and he's now saying they can wait another month. I doubt that Labor will legislate their initiative in budget week, and they're going to stand in the way of this initiative. This is not new news. Anyone who has been paying attention to the debates around the cost of living and labour shortages knows that National Seniors Australia and others—grain producers, agricultural organisations and chambers of commerce and industry in Western Australia, Victoria, and, I suspect, Tasmania—have been saying that this is an urgent issue. Treasury themselves said last week that labour shortages were severe. The time to act is now.</p> <p class="speaker">Louise Pratt</p><p>The opposition wants to make an absolute dog's breakfast of the legislative process in this place. We got these amendments at exactly the same time as the bill on this topic, which those opposite knew was coming at exactly the same time. Just today, we have had the limits legislation on Commonwealth income referred to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee by the Selection of Bills Committee for report later on. That is the bill in which these amendments should be moved, not the bill before us. All you are doing this evening is standing in the way of retirees getting access to the Commonwealth seniors health card. That is what you are doing. You are trying to cross-fertilise things that don't belong together. So here we are—</p> <p class="speaker">James McGrath</p><p>Senator Pratt, take your seat, please. Senator Smith, I believe you might have a point of order.</p> <p class="speaker">Dean Smith</p><p>To be very clear—and it was in my remarks, Senator Pratt—the coalition supports the substantive matter in this bill, and it has amendments.</p><p>The TEMPORARY CHAIR: I don't know if that was a point of order.</p> <p class="speaker">Louise Pratt</p><p>That was indeed a filibuster. The legislation—</p><p>An opposition senator interjecting—</p><p>I am here to legislate!</p><p>The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Order! Senator Pratt needs to be heard in silence.</p><p>The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Ruston, you're not helping things.</p><p>The Labor government wanted to finish this legislation this week so that Commonwealth seniors health cards could be extended to other retirees. Instead, you are proposing these amendments to a bill that is not the right bill to do it in.</p><p>We have a committee inquiry underway on changing the income limits for pensioners, because a referral has just been done by the Selection of Bills Committee to the legislation committee of this chamber. It makes a complete nonsense of legislative process for those opposite to be pursuing these amendments here in this bill. The bill before us is to lift the income threshold for seniors who need access to the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, to deal with their very pressing cost-of-living issues, of which pharmaceutical medications are an absolute priority.</p><p>The government has its own clear plan to lift income limits for pensioners, which we have put forward in a bill that has been referred to a Senate committee. We have not inquired yet into lifting these income limits to the level that the opposition and the Greens are seeking to do. It is simply not feasible to expect this chamber to deal with this question at the eleventh hour, in an amendment that doesn't even belong in this bill.</p><p>Our workforce incentives bill will see an increase in the maximum work bonus income bank balance from $7,800 to $11,800. When you introduced these amendments at the eleventh hour, this morning, I hadn't even had time to look at what the income limits are, how they'll affect the pension outgoings relative to—</p><p><i>An opposition senator interjecting</i></p><p>Well, of course we do, but we still have to get our head around the answers to these questions as a government—for example, their impact on the budget et cetera. And yet you insist on this, when there is a perfect opportunity, with due process, to look at your amendments in the right and proper bill, which is coming before this place in a few weeks time.</p><p>I'm absolutely appalled at those opposite seeking to disrupt parliamentary process in this way—the absolute gall of moving an amendment in one bill, when the substantive issue is dealt with in a completely different piece of legislation that is also up for debate and is also before the parliament. It is not proper legislative process. It's not proper legislative process, for example, to have an issue being debated in one chamber while the same debate on the same question is going on in the other, when it is a substantive matter of legislation. We're supposed to have rules and principles around this. But instead you are seeking to absolutely bypass good parliamentary process.</p><p>This is not good policy development. It is also fiscally irresponsible. It's all very well for those over there to laugh and say, 'Well, you've got a department to go and look at that for you.' It certainly shows that you're in opposition now that you're prepared just to fling these amendments up without really looking at the consequences and working through the due process. Yes, we would like to ask the department. Yes, we would like to look at what the fiscal outcome is—which is not something that can be easily calculated within a day, with no notice. You simply brought these amendments in this morning and then expected the government to come to a voting position on them and be prepared to see the bill passed as amended. So instead, we are at this standstill tonight, where those opposite and the crossbench are getting in the way of making the entitlement available to retirees who would like access to a healthcare card to bring down the cost of their medicine.</p><p>I appreciate that the decisions in this place mean trade-offs in one way or another in terms of who gets something, But those opposite are leaving us in a position of nobody getting anything by the time the sitting day ends today, when we have, nevertheless, a perfect opportunity to progress their agenda in the right bill that is still to come before this place. Instead, yes indeed, I am standing here filibustering this legislation to stop those opposite from making an absolute mess of the legislative process. I am absolutely pleased to wear that on my sleeve because it is absolutely irresponsible for those opposite to have brought these amendments before this place at the 11th hour in the way that they have. You explain to older Australians that you are in the way of their healthcare card. We on this side are not standing in the way of amendments to the workforce bonus. We are here to progress government legislation on that topic, which this parliament has indeed referred to the Community Affairs Committee.</p> <p class="speaker">Dean Smith</p><p>Reporting date of when?</p> <p class="speaker">Louise Pratt</p><p>It has been referred today.</p> <p class="speaker">Dean Smith</p><p>How long do people need to wait?</p> <p class="speaker">Louise Pratt</p><p>We expect the legislation to progress in an orderly and prioritised manner so that we can deliver these outcomes to Australian pensioners and Australian retirees. When you decide to get involved with messy amendments then what happens is we end up leaving this place with no-one winning. There will be a time and a place to debate and consider your amendments but to have them lumped on the government at the 11th hour in the way you did today is completely unconscionable.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2022-09-28.187.1):
- > *That the question be now put.*
- This means that they will now vote on the [question under debate](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/divisions/senate/2022-09-28/6) straight away rather than debating it any further.
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