Community Affairs Legislation Committee
14/06/2012
Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (2012 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2012
The two main groups of people that we see who will be adversely affected are refugees and former refugees. One of the things we would urge you to consider is that sometimes these people have been taken in by third countries, so their families are scattered. That is often a major issue for people who are former refugees. The second group are people with medical conditions who go overseas for remedial treatment.
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.
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.
You can see the govt take on this, they let refugees in on humanitarian grounds who are affected by circumstance and then detained and suffer psychological problems and alot of these people then go onto disability pension when released from detention..they are not given extra payements as many people think but as stated they do have access to the welfare system (i am not bashing refugees in any way this is just my opinion) Now we have a group who want to go back and visit relatives ect as the civil unrest or war has stopped in their home countries. The govt then realizes it has opened a floodgate and introduces the new 6 week rule to curtail it, its a blanket approach and everyone is affected. food for thought
)