Post by gull on Jun 22, 2012 14:57:16 GMT 7
On the 14th of June 2012, the Australian Parliament held a public inquiry into the parliamentary bill reducing the overseas portability of welfare to 6 weeks.
www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=clac_ctte/SocialSecurity2012Budget/index.htm
Here is a transcript of the testimony of Fahcsia* to the Australian Parliament, where they explain the reduction from 13 weeks to 6 weeks.
Note that Fahcsia* is a group of about 5000 people who essentially advise the government and make the laws about social security in Australia. However, some people wrongly believe in lumping Fahcsia and Centrelink together, when they are in fact two completely separate government bodies. Centrelink is a completely separate government agency which has no power to make or change laws and regulations about social security, their sole purpose is to try to apply the laws, and they are subject to the legal system in applying the laws
McBRIDE, Mr Paul, Group Manager, Social Policy, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
MOUFARRIGE, Mr Philip, Acting Branch Manager, Social Security Relationships and International, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
WHITECROSS, Mr Andrew, Branch Manager, Family Payments and Child Support, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
[11:00]
CHAIR: I welcome representatives from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to today's hearing. Information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence has been provided to you. I remind witnesses that the Senate has resolved that an officer of a department of the Commonwealth or of state shall not be asked to give opinions on matters of policy and shall be given reasonable opportunity to refer questions asked of the officer to superior officers or to a minister. This resolution prohibits only questions asking for opinions on matters of policy and does not preclude questions asking for explanations of policies or factual questions about when and how policies were adopted.
The committee has your submission, thank you. I do note, as I put on record earlier, that the committee did have the departmental submission in good time, which gave us an opportunity to have that basis of knowledge, so thank you very much. I invite any or all of you to make an opening statement and at the end of that we will go to questions. Does anyone have an opening statement?
Mr McBride: No.
CHAIR: Senator Siewert, would you like to start questions.
Senator SIEWERT: I am not going to go back over some of the questions I asked in estimates, but I apologise in advance if I forget and go over the same thing. I will start with a question about the savings on the changes to portability and the issue that the Welfare Rights Network brought up about the basis on which the savings are estimated. Their proposal, as you heard, was that people will come back from 13 weeks to being away for six weeks and so will not stay over that length of time.
Mr McBride: I will let Mr Moufarrige go into the detail. Based on the current situations where people do overstay the 13 weeks already, even though it means that their payments will be curtailed, there is an expectation that that will continue.
Senator SIEWERT: How many overstay the 13 weeks?
Mr Moufarrige: Last financial year there were approximately 51,000 people who overstayed the 13-week portability period.
Senator SIEWERT: What were the proportions for the various pensions and allowances?
Mr Moufarrige: I have numbers.
Senator SIEWERT: That is fine.
Mr Moufarrige: The numbers are: Austudy, 756 people; carer payment, 1,686; carer allowance, 3,684; disability support pension, 6,239; parenting payment partnered, 2,228; parenting payment single, 1,540; partner allowance, 160; widows allowance, 728; wife pension age, 181; wife pension disability support, 77; youth allowance, 5,491; seniors supplement, 2,761; FTB part A above the base rate, 11,007; and FTB part B, 14,113.
Senator SIEWERT: Thank you.
Senator BOYCE: What does the total come to?
Mr Moufarrige: 50,651.
CHAIR: Some of those would cross over—there could well be someone on a couple of those payments?
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
CHAIR: They are individual payments, not necessarily individual citizens?
Mr Moufarrige: Payment overstays, yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Your savings are based on that nearly 51,000 overstays—you are expecting you will get the same?
Mr McBride: That is based on the system as it is now; they are the people who overstay the 13 weeks. The saving is based on an expectation that when it comes down there will still be people who overstay the now six-week provision.
Page 14 Senate Thursday, 14 June 2012
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Senator BOYCE: How many people have you based that on? How many people are you expecting to overstay?
Mr Moufarrige: There is an expectation that those people who are currently overstaying the 13-week portability period will also overstay the new six-week portability period. The average period of time a person currently overstays the 13-week portability period is 4½ weeks. In making our estimates we anticipated that there would be a similar overstay of 4½ weeks for those people on income support payments, because there is an assumption that they rely on that income support payment to survive and that they most probably would not stay much longer than that.
Senator BOYCE: So you are estimating that on average they overstay 4½ weeks, so they are away 10½ weeks.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Could I just be clear: it is based on the 51,000 and a 4½ week overstay.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes. And there is a second component to it as well. There are people who currently stay between seven and 13 weeks, and there are approximately 120,000 of those people.
Senator BOYCE: That is the figure I was looking for.
Mr Moufarrige: So there are approximately 120,000-odd people who stay for periods of between six and 13 weeks. The presumption in terms of the estimates was that the majority of those people would alter their behaviour to the new six-week portability period, but approximately 10 per cent would overstay the six-week portability period by an average of three weeks. That was based on what was currently happening.
Senator SIEWERT: Did you say 10 per cent?
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Ten per cent of the 120,000.
Mr Moufarrige: That is correct: 12,216, to be exact.
Senator SIEWERT: So it is the 51,000 plus the 12,000.
Mr Moufarrige: That is correct.
Senator SIEWERT: Is that it—about how you worked it out?
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, but there is—
Senator SIEWERT: There is a third bit?
Mr Moufarrige: No, there is not a third bit, but obviously income support recipients are a little bit different to family assistance recipients. An income support recipient is more inclined to alter their behaviour to come back. For those people on family assistance, we estimated the overstay at the full seven-week period.
Senator SIEWERT: So they would overstay seven weeks.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Is that a separate number of people, on top of the 12,000?
Mr Moufarrige: No, that is included in that number as well.
Senator SIEWERT: Okay, but they were included for a slightly longer period.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, that is correct. For those family assistance customers overstaying the 13-week portability period at the moment, we assumed that they would overstay by the full seven weeks. For those family assistance customers who were staying presently between six and 13 weeks, we estimated 10 per cent of them would overstay by four weeks under the new rules.
Senator SIEWERT: Thank you. That is all I had on portability, because I did cover the severe disability quite extensively during estimates.
CHAIR: Following up from the Welfare Rights evidence, which you heard: they put forward a view that some of the savings could be calculated on people dropping off completely. Was that one element of the savings estimates? Mr Richardson made that comment, when he was estimating what the estimates could be based on. He was saying that the Welfare Rights Network had a view that it could be based on people who would then stay overseas and not reclaim payment at all. Was that one element of proposed savings?
Mr Moufarrige: No.
Senator BOYCE: I have a couple of questions on portability.
CHAIR: We might stick with portability and then go onto the other things.
Thursday, 14 June 2012 Senate Page 15
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Senator BOYCE: Can you just explain to me how, as a citizen intending to go overseas and in receipt of one of these payments, I know that I can only stay away six weeks? What is the current process for my knowing that?
Mr Moufarrige: There are a couple of processes. One, if you are in receipt of an income support payment, you are required to notify Centrelink if there is anything that may affect the amount that you may get paid. In fact, a person going overseas, their departure, is a notifiable event to Centrelink. They should notify Centrelink that they are going overseas. In notifying Centrelink that they are going overseas, Centrelink has a portability script which, as part of that script, they advise people of their portability entitlements. Also Centrelink has on their website, 'What if I am going overseas?' that provides information by payment type regarding the portability provisions.
Senator BOYCE: Do you have any statistics on the number of people who would claim not to have been aware of the current rules when returning to Australia?
Mr Moufarrige: No.
Senator BOYCE: Would Centrelink have anything on that, if those statistics exist?
Mr McBride: We could check with Centrelink.
Senator BOYCE: If you could, please. The other thing was that you would have heard the Welfare Rights people raise the issue of documentary, getting the right evidence to satisfy Centrelink. Difficulty—were people hospitalised when there was a requirement at this end that they be hospitalised; whether a disease is chronic or sudden, et cetera. How often are those criteria reviewed and by whom?
Mr Moufarrige: We were responsible for the policy guidelines in regard to the criteria. In fact, the criteria are listed in the Social Security Act, what constitutes an event for the purposes of a portability extension. They are quite defined within the act. We provide policy guidelines to Centrelink around how they use those things.
Senator BOYCE: But you would appreciate that point about providing evidence of someone being hospitalised or even that someone can be extraordinarily ill and need support without being hospitalised, particularly in a developing country—when were these last reviewed?
Mr Moufarrige: I could not tell you that.
CHAIR: Can you take that on notice.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, I can.
Senator BOYCE: Could you take it on notice and also provide any sort of sense of how flexible and receptive those criteria are to changing circumstances, which of course is going to be quite different in different countries in different environments.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, we can.
Senator BOYCE: Thank you; that is all.
Senator SMITH: Could you just explain to me how the portability arrangements in Australia might compare with other OECD countries?
Mr McBride: It is difficult in the sense that our income support payments function differently from most of the OECD countries in that they contribute to our social security system that they can then draw from if they need; whereas ours does not operate that way. New Zealand is one comparator, and my understanding is their portability provisions are less generous than ours.
Senator SMITH: I would be interested in knowing, of other OECD countries, which are the most comparable and how they compare to Australia's portability arrangements. Moving on, I have a query just in regards to paid parental leave: when the scheme was introduced, it was described by the minister as 'adding to the workplace entitlements for working parents'. If the paid parental leave scheme was not intended as a welfare measure, why is it included amongst the measures to which the portability requirements apply?
Mr Whitecross: I cannot actually answer your question, Senator, because I am not responsible for paid parental leave, so I think we would need to come back to you with advice on that.
CHAIR: Take that on notice, Mr Whitecross.
Senator SMITH: Just keeping with that point—and I accept that you might also take this on notice—I am just keen to understand what the effect of the budget's estimated savings in each year of the forward estimates are when you exclude paid parental leave from the tighter portability restrictions.
Mr Whitecross: So that was the savings in relation to the PPL element of the portability measure?
Senator SMITH: That is right, if you exclude the PPL from the tighter portability restrictions.
Page 16 Senate Thursday, 14 June 2012
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Mr Whitecross: Sure.
Senator SMITH: I am quite conscious of the submission from welfare rights, and we have had a discussion around the mechanism for achieving exemptions et cetera and the suggestion that some citizens, particularly those of a more significant age, might find it difficult meeting the evidential burden requirements. I am curious to know what consideration the department might have given to assisting overcoming that for those significantly older people, particularly refugees, who might be required to travel abroad in those exceptional circumstances at such late notice.
Mr McBride: If they are of aged pension age, they are allowed to be overseas 26 weeks and then, depending on how long they have lived in Australia, that affects their entitlement beyond that. So there is an acknowledgment. The driving force behind a lot of this is that, for people in receipt of income support payments who are of working age or who can work or should be in a position to make themselves available for work, it is more restrictive; but for those who are disabled to the extent that they have no prospect of working or are of aged pension age—once again, not a requirement to work—then the system is more generous. For those of aged pension age, the system will work to be more generous to them.
Senator SMITH: That is why someone who is disabled and being cared for, if their carer is required to be overseas then that is exempted—great. One last question: the entitlement is up to six weeks. Do the majority of people claim the six weeks or do some claim two, three? I am keen to know the disbursement, if you like, within that six-week period. You talked about people that overstay—I accept that—but within that six-week entitlement, where do most people sit in terms of what they apply for? I am keen to get an understanding of what the disbursement is in between that zero and six-week entitlement.
Mr Moufarrige: You do not actually have to apply; you can say that you are going overseas. You do not have to tell Centrelink how long you are going for. At present a person can stay, one, two, three, five, up to 13 weeks. As long as they are back in the country once the 13-week period, there is no stop to their income support payments. Centrelink would be able to get statistics, I suspect, on what you have just asked but there is no requirement to specify a period of time that you are going to be outside of the country.
Senator SMITH: So the requirement is just to notify that you are leaving the country.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SMITH: So if the requirement was to notify but also perhaps to provide an intention of time you expect to be away, surely that might then trigger a better understanding amongst citizens that, if they intend to be away longer than six weeks, then their entitlement might be affected.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, and my understanding is Centrelink advises the portability period. I think there might have been a bit of confusion: a portability extension is not something that is granted while the person is still in Australia; to obtain a portability extension for a payment that has a defined portability period which is currently for those payments, which is 13 weeks, there has to be an event that occurs while the person is overseas that is of significance that prevents them from returning. If they are in Australia and they are advised that they have a very sick relative overseas, and they want to go overseas to visit that relative, they cannot advise Centrelink, 'I want X number of weeks on top of the portability period.' But if they do go and visit that relative and, unfortunately, the relative dies then they may be able to get a portability extension to attend the funeral and other matters.
Senator SMITH: Excellent. Thank you.
CHAIR: Mr Moufarrige, I have one technical question, and that is to do with when someone under the current process—the new change has not come in—goes to Centrelink and says they are going overseas. Do we trigger a review at 13 weeks to see whether those people have come back into the country or not? I am interested in that data on the 51,000. How many of those people were found to have been overstayers by means of their advising the department that they were going to be overstayers, and how many were found not to have been back in the country at the end of 13 weeks? It is just a technical point, because all the pension payments and the family payments do not require a stimulus to be paid. How do we know that someone is not back?
Mr Moufarrige: Centrelink does know when a person returns, because there is data matching with—
CHAIR: So they data-match on the 13 weeks.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, with DIAC.
CHAIR: I know the departments do regular data matching, but I just wanted to find out whether it was stimulated by someone actually notifying the department they were going overseas and then, automatically in the system, there being a data match at the end of the allowable time.
Thursday, 14 June 2012 Senate Page 17
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Mr Moufarrige: Obviously for some family assistance payments, which may be quite small for some customers, it may not be in their mind to notify Centrelink that they are going overseas.
CHAIR: They have never even thought about it.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, but they will get picked up through the matching system. Those people that are on income support payments, particularly age pensioners who may be affected by proportionalisation, often notify Centrelink to get an understanding about the payments and the proportionality that occurs at 26 weeks.
CHAIR: That is also the familiarity with the system.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
CHAIR: They are already in the system, so they understand it.
Mr Whitecross: Just in relation to that question, my understanding of how it works for family payments is that there is real-time updating between DIAC and the family assistance system on departures and arrivals, which means that we would be able to automatically adjust the payments to take account of departures and arrivals. There is also a weekly data match which is designed to pick up people who are not picked up in the real-time data.
CHAIR: Okay. That is the technical side. You heard in the evidence from the Welfare Rights Network that ethnic community councils stated that they were unaware of the changes that had been proposed in the budget. I am interested to know what interaction of communication there has been with core groups that would be identified as having particular interest in this area. We have had this discussion in a number of inquiries. One would think that anything to do with portability would automatically trigger a need to talk with groups that have links with overseas citizens and interaction in that way. So, once the budget proposal had gone through—we all understand that there is no consultation per se around budget decisions—and once the budget was made public, what efforts have been made to ensure that organisations such as FECCA, ethnic communities councils and refugee organisations are aware of this proposed change?
Mr Moufarrige: We have not approached those organisations as yet.
CHAIR: Okay.
Mr McBride: It is worth noting that this does not commence till 1 January next year, so there is still time for the understanding of how these provisions will change to filter through to the community.
CHAIR: But not time for people to be able to lobby to have change, because of the parliamentary process. Yes. It is not a yes/no; it is a yes.
Mr McBride: That is correct, yes. We are not consulting on the legislation.
CHAIR: The other point I made was to do with the natural disaster example that was identified by Welfare Rights Network. In a natural disaster emergency such as we have had, unfortunately, many times in the last few years, where Australian citizens have been caught up in natural disasters, it was my understanding that DFAT with Centrelink and other agencies had an emergency response. From the FaHCSIA point of view and from a portability point of view, is it something that is part of that emergency response to actually look at citizens who are on a welfare payment in Australia who are caught up in a natural disaster? Does someone talk with them about that? It may be something that I will have to put on notice and put to DFAT.
We get lots of very positive propaganda about how Australians look after Australians when they are caught up in things like tsunamis, earthquakes and so on, but I want to know whether one of the boxes that is ticked when you are talking with Australians in that situation is that there welfare situation is taken into account.
Mr McBride: That is certainly my understanding that that particular circumstance lends itself to the extension provisions.
CHAIR: I would hope so, but—
Mr McBride: It is always difficult to look at a cameo and work out what actually happened.
CHAIR: People slip through the cracks. Actually that was a very unfortunate comment considering the example that was used, and I do apologise to everybody. But, generally speaking, if you were caught up in a natural disaster there would be that immediacy of support? So, amidst all the other things that you are struggling to cope with, wondering about whether your pension is going to be cut off should not be the No. 1 thing that is on your mind?
Mr Moufarrige: Correct.
CHAIR: Do you want to take that on notice, Mr McBride and go back to your areas, rather than us going—
Page 18 Senate Thursday, 14 June 2012
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Mr McBride: We can check with DFAT—
CHAIR: That would be very useful.
Mr McBride: to the extent that they serve various regions and if it was a remote region of a country. Once again, it is hard to tell from the details that we were given about how it would work.
CHAIR: Sure, and it could be anywhere, but just in terms of allaying our concerns as a committee that there is a policy response to such a situation.
Mr McBride: Yes.
CHAIR: As there are no further questions around portability, we will move to family payments.
www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate_Committees?url=clac_ctte/SocialSecurity2012Budget/index.htm
Here is a transcript of the testimony of Fahcsia* to the Australian Parliament, where they explain the reduction from 13 weeks to 6 weeks.
Note that Fahcsia* is a group of about 5000 people who essentially advise the government and make the laws about social security in Australia. However, some people wrongly believe in lumping Fahcsia and Centrelink together, when they are in fact two completely separate government bodies. Centrelink is a completely separate government agency which has no power to make or change laws and regulations about social security, their sole purpose is to try to apply the laws, and they are subject to the legal system in applying the laws
McBRIDE, Mr Paul, Group Manager, Social Policy, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
MOUFARRIGE, Mr Philip, Acting Branch Manager, Social Security Relationships and International, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
WHITECROSS, Mr Andrew, Branch Manager, Family Payments and Child Support, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
[11:00]
CHAIR: I welcome representatives from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to today's hearing. Information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses and evidence has been provided to you. I remind witnesses that the Senate has resolved that an officer of a department of the Commonwealth or of state shall not be asked to give opinions on matters of policy and shall be given reasonable opportunity to refer questions asked of the officer to superior officers or to a minister. This resolution prohibits only questions asking for opinions on matters of policy and does not preclude questions asking for explanations of policies or factual questions about when and how policies were adopted.
The committee has your submission, thank you. I do note, as I put on record earlier, that the committee did have the departmental submission in good time, which gave us an opportunity to have that basis of knowledge, so thank you very much. I invite any or all of you to make an opening statement and at the end of that we will go to questions. Does anyone have an opening statement?
Mr McBride: No.
CHAIR: Senator Siewert, would you like to start questions.
Senator SIEWERT: I am not going to go back over some of the questions I asked in estimates, but I apologise in advance if I forget and go over the same thing. I will start with a question about the savings on the changes to portability and the issue that the Welfare Rights Network brought up about the basis on which the savings are estimated. Their proposal, as you heard, was that people will come back from 13 weeks to being away for six weeks and so will not stay over that length of time.
Mr McBride: I will let Mr Moufarrige go into the detail. Based on the current situations where people do overstay the 13 weeks already, even though it means that their payments will be curtailed, there is an expectation that that will continue.
Senator SIEWERT: How many overstay the 13 weeks?
Mr Moufarrige: Last financial year there were approximately 51,000 people who overstayed the 13-week portability period.
Senator SIEWERT: What were the proportions for the various pensions and allowances?
Mr Moufarrige: I have numbers.
Senator SIEWERT: That is fine.
Mr Moufarrige: The numbers are: Austudy, 756 people; carer payment, 1,686; carer allowance, 3,684; disability support pension, 6,239; parenting payment partnered, 2,228; parenting payment single, 1,540; partner allowance, 160; widows allowance, 728; wife pension age, 181; wife pension disability support, 77; youth allowance, 5,491; seniors supplement, 2,761; FTB part A above the base rate, 11,007; and FTB part B, 14,113.
Senator SIEWERT: Thank you.
Senator BOYCE: What does the total come to?
Mr Moufarrige: 50,651.
CHAIR: Some of those would cross over—there could well be someone on a couple of those payments?
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
CHAIR: They are individual payments, not necessarily individual citizens?
Mr Moufarrige: Payment overstays, yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Your savings are based on that nearly 51,000 overstays—you are expecting you will get the same?
Mr McBride: That is based on the system as it is now; they are the people who overstay the 13 weeks. The saving is based on an expectation that when it comes down there will still be people who overstay the now six-week provision.
Page 14 Senate Thursday, 14 June 2012
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Senator BOYCE: How many people have you based that on? How many people are you expecting to overstay?
Mr Moufarrige: There is an expectation that those people who are currently overstaying the 13-week portability period will also overstay the new six-week portability period. The average period of time a person currently overstays the 13-week portability period is 4½ weeks. In making our estimates we anticipated that there would be a similar overstay of 4½ weeks for those people on income support payments, because there is an assumption that they rely on that income support payment to survive and that they most probably would not stay much longer than that.
Senator BOYCE: So you are estimating that on average they overstay 4½ weeks, so they are away 10½ weeks.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Could I just be clear: it is based on the 51,000 and a 4½ week overstay.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes. And there is a second component to it as well. There are people who currently stay between seven and 13 weeks, and there are approximately 120,000 of those people.
Senator BOYCE: That is the figure I was looking for.
Mr Moufarrige: So there are approximately 120,000-odd people who stay for periods of between six and 13 weeks. The presumption in terms of the estimates was that the majority of those people would alter their behaviour to the new six-week portability period, but approximately 10 per cent would overstay the six-week portability period by an average of three weeks. That was based on what was currently happening.
Senator SIEWERT: Did you say 10 per cent?
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Ten per cent of the 120,000.
Mr Moufarrige: That is correct: 12,216, to be exact.
Senator SIEWERT: So it is the 51,000 plus the 12,000.
Mr Moufarrige: That is correct.
Senator SIEWERT: Is that it—about how you worked it out?
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, but there is—
Senator SIEWERT: There is a third bit?
Mr Moufarrige: No, there is not a third bit, but obviously income support recipients are a little bit different to family assistance recipients. An income support recipient is more inclined to alter their behaviour to come back. For those people on family assistance, we estimated the overstay at the full seven-week period.
Senator SIEWERT: So they would overstay seven weeks.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SIEWERT: Is that a separate number of people, on top of the 12,000?
Mr Moufarrige: No, that is included in that number as well.
Senator SIEWERT: Okay, but they were included for a slightly longer period.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, that is correct. For those family assistance customers overstaying the 13-week portability period at the moment, we assumed that they would overstay by the full seven weeks. For those family assistance customers who were staying presently between six and 13 weeks, we estimated 10 per cent of them would overstay by four weeks under the new rules.
Senator SIEWERT: Thank you. That is all I had on portability, because I did cover the severe disability quite extensively during estimates.
CHAIR: Following up from the Welfare Rights evidence, which you heard: they put forward a view that some of the savings could be calculated on people dropping off completely. Was that one element of the savings estimates? Mr Richardson made that comment, when he was estimating what the estimates could be based on. He was saying that the Welfare Rights Network had a view that it could be based on people who would then stay overseas and not reclaim payment at all. Was that one element of proposed savings?
Mr Moufarrige: No.
Senator BOYCE: I have a couple of questions on portability.
CHAIR: We might stick with portability and then go onto the other things.
Thursday, 14 June 2012 Senate Page 15
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Senator BOYCE: Can you just explain to me how, as a citizen intending to go overseas and in receipt of one of these payments, I know that I can only stay away six weeks? What is the current process for my knowing that?
Mr Moufarrige: There are a couple of processes. One, if you are in receipt of an income support payment, you are required to notify Centrelink if there is anything that may affect the amount that you may get paid. In fact, a person going overseas, their departure, is a notifiable event to Centrelink. They should notify Centrelink that they are going overseas. In notifying Centrelink that they are going overseas, Centrelink has a portability script which, as part of that script, they advise people of their portability entitlements. Also Centrelink has on their website, 'What if I am going overseas?' that provides information by payment type regarding the portability provisions.
Senator BOYCE: Do you have any statistics on the number of people who would claim not to have been aware of the current rules when returning to Australia?
Mr Moufarrige: No.
Senator BOYCE: Would Centrelink have anything on that, if those statistics exist?
Mr McBride: We could check with Centrelink.
Senator BOYCE: If you could, please. The other thing was that you would have heard the Welfare Rights people raise the issue of documentary, getting the right evidence to satisfy Centrelink. Difficulty—were people hospitalised when there was a requirement at this end that they be hospitalised; whether a disease is chronic or sudden, et cetera. How often are those criteria reviewed and by whom?
Mr Moufarrige: We were responsible for the policy guidelines in regard to the criteria. In fact, the criteria are listed in the Social Security Act, what constitutes an event for the purposes of a portability extension. They are quite defined within the act. We provide policy guidelines to Centrelink around how they use those things.
Senator BOYCE: But you would appreciate that point about providing evidence of someone being hospitalised or even that someone can be extraordinarily ill and need support without being hospitalised, particularly in a developing country—when were these last reviewed?
Mr Moufarrige: I could not tell you that.
CHAIR: Can you take that on notice.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, I can.
Senator BOYCE: Could you take it on notice and also provide any sort of sense of how flexible and receptive those criteria are to changing circumstances, which of course is going to be quite different in different countries in different environments.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, we can.
Senator BOYCE: Thank you; that is all.
Senator SMITH: Could you just explain to me how the portability arrangements in Australia might compare with other OECD countries?
Mr McBride: It is difficult in the sense that our income support payments function differently from most of the OECD countries in that they contribute to our social security system that they can then draw from if they need; whereas ours does not operate that way. New Zealand is one comparator, and my understanding is their portability provisions are less generous than ours.
Senator SMITH: I would be interested in knowing, of other OECD countries, which are the most comparable and how they compare to Australia's portability arrangements. Moving on, I have a query just in regards to paid parental leave: when the scheme was introduced, it was described by the minister as 'adding to the workplace entitlements for working parents'. If the paid parental leave scheme was not intended as a welfare measure, why is it included amongst the measures to which the portability requirements apply?
Mr Whitecross: I cannot actually answer your question, Senator, because I am not responsible for paid parental leave, so I think we would need to come back to you with advice on that.
CHAIR: Take that on notice, Mr Whitecross.
Senator SMITH: Just keeping with that point—and I accept that you might also take this on notice—I am just keen to understand what the effect of the budget's estimated savings in each year of the forward estimates are when you exclude paid parental leave from the tighter portability restrictions.
Mr Whitecross: So that was the savings in relation to the PPL element of the portability measure?
Senator SMITH: That is right, if you exclude the PPL from the tighter portability restrictions.
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Mr Whitecross: Sure.
Senator SMITH: I am quite conscious of the submission from welfare rights, and we have had a discussion around the mechanism for achieving exemptions et cetera and the suggestion that some citizens, particularly those of a more significant age, might find it difficult meeting the evidential burden requirements. I am curious to know what consideration the department might have given to assisting overcoming that for those significantly older people, particularly refugees, who might be required to travel abroad in those exceptional circumstances at such late notice.
Mr McBride: If they are of aged pension age, they are allowed to be overseas 26 weeks and then, depending on how long they have lived in Australia, that affects their entitlement beyond that. So there is an acknowledgment. The driving force behind a lot of this is that, for people in receipt of income support payments who are of working age or who can work or should be in a position to make themselves available for work, it is more restrictive; but for those who are disabled to the extent that they have no prospect of working or are of aged pension age—once again, not a requirement to work—then the system is more generous. For those of aged pension age, the system will work to be more generous to them.
Senator SMITH: That is why someone who is disabled and being cared for, if their carer is required to be overseas then that is exempted—great. One last question: the entitlement is up to six weeks. Do the majority of people claim the six weeks or do some claim two, three? I am keen to know the disbursement, if you like, within that six-week period. You talked about people that overstay—I accept that—but within that six-week entitlement, where do most people sit in terms of what they apply for? I am keen to get an understanding of what the disbursement is in between that zero and six-week entitlement.
Mr Moufarrige: You do not actually have to apply; you can say that you are going overseas. You do not have to tell Centrelink how long you are going for. At present a person can stay, one, two, three, five, up to 13 weeks. As long as they are back in the country once the 13-week period, there is no stop to their income support payments. Centrelink would be able to get statistics, I suspect, on what you have just asked but there is no requirement to specify a period of time that you are going to be outside of the country.
Senator SMITH: So the requirement is just to notify that you are leaving the country.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
Senator SMITH: So if the requirement was to notify but also perhaps to provide an intention of time you expect to be away, surely that might then trigger a better understanding amongst citizens that, if they intend to be away longer than six weeks, then their entitlement might be affected.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, and my understanding is Centrelink advises the portability period. I think there might have been a bit of confusion: a portability extension is not something that is granted while the person is still in Australia; to obtain a portability extension for a payment that has a defined portability period which is currently for those payments, which is 13 weeks, there has to be an event that occurs while the person is overseas that is of significance that prevents them from returning. If they are in Australia and they are advised that they have a very sick relative overseas, and they want to go overseas to visit that relative, they cannot advise Centrelink, 'I want X number of weeks on top of the portability period.' But if they do go and visit that relative and, unfortunately, the relative dies then they may be able to get a portability extension to attend the funeral and other matters.
Senator SMITH: Excellent. Thank you.
CHAIR: Mr Moufarrige, I have one technical question, and that is to do with when someone under the current process—the new change has not come in—goes to Centrelink and says they are going overseas. Do we trigger a review at 13 weeks to see whether those people have come back into the country or not? I am interested in that data on the 51,000. How many of those people were found to have been overstayers by means of their advising the department that they were going to be overstayers, and how many were found not to have been back in the country at the end of 13 weeks? It is just a technical point, because all the pension payments and the family payments do not require a stimulus to be paid. How do we know that someone is not back?
Mr Moufarrige: Centrelink does know when a person returns, because there is data matching with—
CHAIR: So they data-match on the 13 weeks.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, with DIAC.
CHAIR: I know the departments do regular data matching, but I just wanted to find out whether it was stimulated by someone actually notifying the department they were going overseas and then, automatically in the system, there being a data match at the end of the allowable time.
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Mr Moufarrige: Obviously for some family assistance payments, which may be quite small for some customers, it may not be in their mind to notify Centrelink that they are going overseas.
CHAIR: They have never even thought about it.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes, but they will get picked up through the matching system. Those people that are on income support payments, particularly age pensioners who may be affected by proportionalisation, often notify Centrelink to get an understanding about the payments and the proportionality that occurs at 26 weeks.
CHAIR: That is also the familiarity with the system.
Mr Moufarrige: Yes.
CHAIR: They are already in the system, so they understand it.
Mr Whitecross: Just in relation to that question, my understanding of how it works for family payments is that there is real-time updating between DIAC and the family assistance system on departures and arrivals, which means that we would be able to automatically adjust the payments to take account of departures and arrivals. There is also a weekly data match which is designed to pick up people who are not picked up in the real-time data.
CHAIR: Okay. That is the technical side. You heard in the evidence from the Welfare Rights Network that ethnic community councils stated that they were unaware of the changes that had been proposed in the budget. I am interested to know what interaction of communication there has been with core groups that would be identified as having particular interest in this area. We have had this discussion in a number of inquiries. One would think that anything to do with portability would automatically trigger a need to talk with groups that have links with overseas citizens and interaction in that way. So, once the budget proposal had gone through—we all understand that there is no consultation per se around budget decisions—and once the budget was made public, what efforts have been made to ensure that organisations such as FECCA, ethnic communities councils and refugee organisations are aware of this proposed change?
Mr Moufarrige: We have not approached those organisations as yet.
CHAIR: Okay.
Mr McBride: It is worth noting that this does not commence till 1 January next year, so there is still time for the understanding of how these provisions will change to filter through to the community.
CHAIR: But not time for people to be able to lobby to have change, because of the parliamentary process. Yes. It is not a yes/no; it is a yes.
Mr McBride: That is correct, yes. We are not consulting on the legislation.
CHAIR: The other point I made was to do with the natural disaster example that was identified by Welfare Rights Network. In a natural disaster emergency such as we have had, unfortunately, many times in the last few years, where Australian citizens have been caught up in natural disasters, it was my understanding that DFAT with Centrelink and other agencies had an emergency response. From the FaHCSIA point of view and from a portability point of view, is it something that is part of that emergency response to actually look at citizens who are on a welfare payment in Australia who are caught up in a natural disaster? Does someone talk with them about that? It may be something that I will have to put on notice and put to DFAT.
We get lots of very positive propaganda about how Australians look after Australians when they are caught up in things like tsunamis, earthquakes and so on, but I want to know whether one of the boxes that is ticked when you are talking with Australians in that situation is that there welfare situation is taken into account.
Mr McBride: That is certainly my understanding that that particular circumstance lends itself to the extension provisions.
CHAIR: I would hope so, but—
Mr McBride: It is always difficult to look at a cameo and work out what actually happened.
CHAIR: People slip through the cracks. Actually that was a very unfortunate comment considering the example that was used, and I do apologise to everybody. But, generally speaking, if you were caught up in a natural disaster there would be that immediacy of support? So, amidst all the other things that you are struggling to cope with, wondering about whether your pension is going to be cut off should not be the No. 1 thing that is on your mind?
Mr Moufarrige: Correct.
CHAIR: Do you want to take that on notice, Mr McBride and go back to your areas, rather than us going—
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Mr McBride: We can check with DFAT—
CHAIR: That would be very useful.
Mr McBride: to the extent that they serve various regions and if it was a remote region of a country. Once again, it is hard to tell from the details that we were given about how it would work.
CHAIR: Sure, and it could be anywhere, but just in terms of allaying our concerns as a committee that there is a policy response to such a situation.
Mr McBride: Yes.
CHAIR: As there are no further questions around portability, we will move to family payments.
