29th Mar 2017, 5:37 PM – Representatives Social Services Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 - Second Reading - Don't agree with bill's main idea

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Labor MP Jenny Macklin against the bill, which means it failed.

The motion effectively asked the House of Representatives to reject the bill's main idea. In parliamentary jargon, it asked the House to refuse to give the bill a second reading.

What is the bill's main idea?

The purpose of this bill is to make savings for the government in the social services sector (social welfare etc).

According to the bill's homepage, it was introduced to:

• pause for three years the indexation of various income thresholds that apply to certain social security benefits and allowances and the income test free area for parenting payment single
• extend the ordinary waiting period to youth allowance (other) and parenting payment
• include additional evidentiary requirements for the ‘severe financial hardship’ exemption from the ordinary waiting period
• remove the ability for claimants to serve the ordinary waiting period concurrently with other waiting periods
• enable automation of the regular income stream review process; and
• maintain the standard family tax benefit (FTB) child rates for two years, from 1 July 2017, in the maximum and base rate of FTB Part A and the maximum rate of FTB Part B.

Motion text

That all the words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"The House:

(1) declines to give the bill a second reading because it includes cuts to Family Tax Benefit that will leave 1.5 million families worse off, freezes income free areas for 264,500 recipients of income support and student payments, and forces young people and single parents to wait one week to access income support; and

(2) calls on the government to drop their unfair cuts to families and vulnerable Australians on very low incomes.