23rd Jun 2014, 12:59 PM – Senate Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Measures) Bill 2014 - Third Reading - Read a third time

This division relates to the Policy For limiting availability of welfare payments.

The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a third time.(Read more about the stages that a bill must pass through to become law here. ) This means that the majority agree with the bill and want it to pass through the Senate.

The bill will now be returned to the House of Representatives for them to consider the amendment agreed to in the Senate during the in committee stage.(See the transcript for the in committee stage here. ) The amendment removed all references to the Child Care Benefit in the bill. Labor Senator Kim Carr, who introduced the amendment, explained that it "effectively will split the bill" and "will allow the Senate ... to consider the change to the childcare rebate as a separate issue".(See Mr Carr's full explanation here. Read Liberal Senator Marise Payne's explanation for why the Government agreed to this amendment here. )

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced primarily to amend the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 in order to:

• maintain the indexation pause on the Child Care Rebate (CCR) limit at $7500 for three years from 1 July 2014; and
• maintain the Child Care Benefit (CCB) income thresholds at the amounts applicable as at 30 June 2014 for three years from 1 July 2014.

However, this latter measure (i.e. the changes to the CCB income threshold) has been removed by the amendment introduced by Senator Carr (mentioned above).

Normally, the CCR limit and CCB income test thresholds are indexed on an annual basis to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). These measures constitute a freeze on the annual indexation of these amounts.(Read more about these measure in the bills digest. )

The Government announced this freeze on the indexation of the CCB income test threshold in the 2014–15 Budget. It is part of a broader measure that affects the indexation of income test thresholds for major welfare payments.(Read more about the background to the bill in the bills digest.)