Minister Plibersek interview on ABC News Breakfast

E&OE TRANSCRIPT TOPICS: Migration, Child Support EMMA REBELLATO: Let's go to Federal Politics now. We're joined by Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek. Good morning.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Good morning. REBELLATO: I'll get to Labor's child support bill in a moment, but I first want to get your thoughts on the country and how the Labor Party wants to kerb the country's migration intake, in particular when it comes to effectively stopping international students from bringing family members to Australia.

We spoke to Universities Australia just moments ago. They said the message is clear. The government wants to reduce international students.

It's going to hurt universities. Is that the message you want to send? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, a couple of things.

The first is we've been methodically bringing down net overseas migration since we were elected. It's about 45% lower now than when we came to government and we want to continue to meet the targets that we've set for net overseas migration. 245,000 this year, 225,000 the next couple of years. But we want to do that in a way that is sensible and methodical.

We know that this country needs skilled migration. You know, our health system, our aged care system, our agricultural sector wouldn't work without overseas migration. We need to make sure that that continues, but in a way that meets Australia's needs, puts Australia's needs first.

REBELLATO: How will the government stop so called visa hopping? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, that's a matter for the Immigration Minister to speak about at the press club later today. And I'll leave any further announcements to the Immigration Minister.

REBELLATO: We know there were a lot of disagreements in Cabinet regarding this policy which was. MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, actually. Just a minute.

You don't know that at all. That has been reported and you can't always believe what you read in the newspapers we've had. REBELLATO: There weren't any disagreements at all.

You all agreed on everything? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I don't talk about what happened in cabinet, but I can say to you that it was a very constructive discussion that focused on the real issues here, which is making sure that our immigration system is fit for purpose, that it meets the needs of our country. And by the way, that we continue to celebrate the contributions that migrants to this country have make today and have made for many, many years.

REBELLATO: Ok, so you're saying there weren't disagreements on this, but you had big discussions? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I'm not speaking about what happens in Cabinet. I never do.

I'm simply saying that when you read these stories and repeat them as though they're fact, you can't. You can't believe everything that you read in the papers, that's for sure. REBELLATO: Ok, well, the Greens say Labor's abandoning its principles and caving to pressure from the right.

Are you? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I'm here to talk about child support, which affects a million Australian children. If you want a commentary on what the Greens say in the Parliament every day, maybe get the Greens on to talk about what they believe.

I honestly don't pay much attention to what the Greens are saying about what Labor policy is, because their standard position is we're doing something wrong. REBELLATO: Ok, Minister, let's talk about the legislation. You want to make the child support system safer.

How has it been manipulated to hurt kids and parents? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, we know that the child support system is absolutely vital in this country to support children. We want parents, both parents, even after they've broken up, to take financial responsibility for their kids so that their kids have a decent quality of life.

And all too often, child support is not paid. It's not paid on time or in full. Or the system itself is used as a sort of insidious form of domestic violence, where you can continue to harass or intimidate your ex.

There's about $2 billion of child support debt in this country that we know about. We've got 200 cases where the debt is more than $150,000. We've got one case where the debt is more than $2 million.

So, we know that this system is being misused and we need to fix that. So, in the last budget, we set aside $183 million to fix every part of the child support system. And this first tranche of legislation that we're introducing today, does a few really important things.

It makes the child support system safer by taking out a whole lot of opportunities for harassing or intimidating your ex. It makes sure that people don't accidentally incur family tax benefit debts because their former partner hasn't properly reported income. It deals with that issue.

And the third thing that it does that's really important is it allows children who are living overseas, who've got an Australian parent, to receive child support from that Australian parent. And obviously that can make a very big difference for those children living overseas. So, the sort of things that we're changing in this legislation are making sure that only the amount of information that needs to be exchanged between parents is exchanged if there's a change of assessment.

Now, I know that sounds a bit complicated, but what we know is that parents often, they know that their former partner's earning more or their circumstances have changed. But if they want a change in the child support assessment, they have to provide a whole lot of really quite irrelevant information that can be quite unsafe to provide. So, if someone's escaping a partner that has been physically violent, that has stalked or intimidated them and they ask for a change of assessment, they have to hand over their own bank account details, their address, their new place of employment.

Well, you can see how the danger of that would often prevent people actually receiving the child support that they need to raise their child safely. REBELLATO: Minister on that $2 billion of unpaid child support, which is an extraordinary amount. MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah.

REBELLATO: Will these laws help claw that back or will it prevent future, you know, people from getting away with not being able to pay child support? MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, that is a fantastic question because it does actually help us recover some of that outstanding debt. If people move from the private collection system to the agency collection system, so the child support agency collection system, it'll give the child support agency the ability to go after that outstanding debt.

So, that's one way we're helping. There's a few more things that we're doing. The next piece of legislation we introduce will actually have transport or travel bans on people who've got outstanding child support debts of more than $10,000.

They'll be automatically stopped from leaving the country. That's a very strong incentive for people to pay. And we're also investing more in resources for the tax office to go after people who haven't been lodging tax returns.

We know that one of the ways that people minimise their child support or avoid paying it is by saying, I've had no income or, you know, I've had much less income, than they've actually had. By giving more resources to the ATO, both to pursue people who aren't putting in their tax returns and to data match so that we've got more information going between government systems about people's actual income, we can reduce that outstanding child support debt.

REBELLATO: Tanya Plibersek, we really appreciate your time. Thank you. MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Thank you.