Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 1) Bill 2026

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (13:21): At risk of taking a fact checker to what Senator Allman-Payne has just shouted at the chamber—I mean, there are microphones in place for the purposes of ensuring that everybody can hear what you say—the reality is the Greens have never had to balance a budget, Senator Allman-Payne.

I don't know what is factually untrue about that. Nothing. You haven't.

I accept it's the Greens political party's position to diminish national security and defence of the country—that is the position you bring into this chamber on a daily basis. We have a different view. We think it is the Australian government's responsibility to keep its citizens safe and ensure appropriate resourcing for national security and defence purposes.

I accept you disagree with that as a priority, and I accept that if you were putting a budget together you would make different budget decisions, but you have never had to make those choices. Senator Allman-Payne you have never, ever had to make them. You have never had to make them, so you dance in here, in the fairyland that the Greens political party lives in, failing to understand— Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— Senator Shoebridge interjecting— Senator GALLAGHER: I can't hear Senator Shoebridge, but I know he continuously interjects.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Cox ): I'll just address those. Senators at the end of the chamber, while Senator Allman-Payne was on her feet, she was heard in silence. Interjections are disorderly, so I ask you that, if you can't sit in silence, please leave the chamber.

For the respect of the person on their feet addressing the chamber, I require silence. I cannot hear her to my right, and she's sitting very, very close to me, because I can hear the interjections. Please remain silent.

Minister, you have the call. Senator GALLAGHER: Thank you, Chair, and for your protection. As I have said in the previous contributions, we have increased payments, including for those on JobSeeker, including for those on parenting payments single and including for those who are in receipt of rental assistance.

We have also taken a number of other steps that interact with the payment system. Our Medicare bulk-billing, for example, was targeted to people on concession cards and those under the age of 16 until we made it broadly more applicable. To make medicines cheaper for people on concession cards, they were capped at $7.70 for the next few years.

These are all steps that we have taken to provide support. Energy bill relief, including an extra payment that went to those on concessions, was recognising that people on fixed and low incomes require additional cost-of-living support, and we have provided it. As I said, we will continue to look at payments, as we do every budget.

They are appropriately indexed so that when there are periods of higher inflation, that is dealt with through the way we index those payments. I don't accept the analysis put forward by Senator Allman-Payne in any way. The reality is the Greens political party don't ever have to make choices; you just have a list of demands.

You are a party of protest, and you come in here and exercise that protest on the floor of the chamber. But the reality is that you don't not have to think about the broader decisions that go into making a budget. Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— Senator GALLAGHER: That's fine, but I am making a different point.

The point I'm making is that when we are looking at some of the changes to social security, including adequacy of payments, we don't do it by a Greens amendment on the floor of the Senate; we do it through a budget process. That's what parties of government have to do, because, at the end of the day, they have to work out how you meet competing and different priorities.

Whether it be national security and defence, which I know you would ignore and think is not a priority, whether it's dealing with pressure in the education system, whether it's dealing with pressure on hospitals, whether it's dealing with pressure on payments, whether it's dealing with pressure on the energy system, across the board those are the decisions we have to make when we put a budget together.

I know you would like to make it sound that you could just stop that, triple that, end defence spending and have everyone be happy, but the reality is that that is not the world that we are living in. It might be a Greens fantasy world, but it isn't the real world. The parties of government that sit in this chamber have to deal with the real world.

You can scoff, Senator Allman-Payne. You can scoff and you can ignore reality and live in Greens fairy land, but we will govern from the real world. Senator Allman-Payne: A point of order.

The minister has said that I scoffed. I didn't even open my mouth. I ask that she withdraw.

Senator GALLAGHER: I'm happy to withdraw. I saw something different, but I'm happy to withdraw. We will not support the amendments that have been moved by Senator Allman-Payne.

They are all of a similar type, which is seeking to change the amount of the payment as opposed to providing legal certainty for the payment, which is what this bill seeks to do. It is important that we get this bill done, and I accept that we're not going to be able to do that this week. I'm hoping that we are going to be in a position to do it next week.

These are some of the first pieces of work that we are pulling together to deal with those issues of legal noncompliance which Senator Allman-Payne identified in her earlier remarks. There are a number of them, and we will continue to bring those pieces of work to the chamber in an orderly way once the government has considered them and received the advice from relevant departments.

This bill is not the avenue for the Greens political party to pursue other goals or other policy ideas. This is about ensuring legal compliance around the ability to provide urgent payments. The advice government got on urgent payments is that we needed to respond in legislation to ensure that those people Senator Allman-Payne says she is concerned about, and whom the government is similarly concerned about, are able to lawfully be provided with those urgent payments when it is appropriate.

This is a series of pieces of work that will come to this chamber to deal with that. We don't support the Greens amendment or the contribution from Senator Allman-Payne.