Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2026

Ms MILLER-FROST (Boothby) (12:31): Social security in Australia is underpinned by a simple idea—that, if you fall on hard times, we will be there for you. As Australians, we look after each other, because no Australian should feel like help isn't there when they need it. We want Australians who are unemployed to be able to concentrate on looking for secure work.

We want single parents to be able to put food on the table for their family. We want students to be able to focus on their studies and complete their qualifications, so they can build their careers and contribute to the country. We want new parents to be able to spend precious time with their new baby, but also to be able to continue their career, if and when they want, without what used to be called the 'motherhood penalty'.

While superannuation has enabled many Australians to enjoy the retirement they want, those retirees with inadequate superannuation, or no super at all, also need to be supported, financially and in terms of the services they need—often, increasingly. We are a compassionate country where we look after each other. While there are those that seek to divide us for their own political gain, it is in our compassion and support for each other that Australia finds its strength—a strength that sets us apart from so many countries around the world.

Before coming to this place, I worked in the not-for-profit sector at Vinnies and at Catherine House. Catherine House works for women experiencing homelessness, and the one thing that people who are homeless have in common is poverty. We always said that, for women, this was the perfect storm of gender disadvantage.

Many of them were leaving domestic violence relationships or had grown up in a domestic violence household. Older women were often the generation who had had to leave work when they got married or got pregnant. They had little to no superannuation and no savings.

After a relationship breakdown, there were often child support issues. Even for younger women, their employment was often affected by gaps in their employment—and, therefore, gaps in their superannuation and career progression—as they had children. Australia is there for these people, and Australia is there for those who are down on their luck and doing it tough.

Our social security system is about giving a helping hand to vulnerable Australians who aren't able to support themselves at this point. It is about guaranteeing a minimum standard of living—a safety net to catch you when you fall—because you should be able to work hard to get ahead, secure in the knowledge that, when life takes a turn, the government will help you; Australia will help you.

We're here for each other. Australia's social security is about making sure that Australians are not left behind, because our individual welfare translates to our collective welfare. The Albanese Labor government understands this and so is absolutely committed to strengthening Australia's social security system.

We've increased social security payments through indexation, meaning more than five million Australians will see more money in their bank accounts to support the cost of living. This is on top of the government's $40-a-fortnight increase to working age and student payments. From the beginning of this year, around one million Australians on the age pension or the disability support pension or receiving the carer pension will also have seen an increase in their fortnightly payment, as will those receiving Commonwealth rent assistance, JobSeeker, Abstudy and the parenting payment.

And Australians receiving the age pension, disability support pension and carer payment are set to see asset thresholds lifted, meaning your support payments will not be affected even if you have more assets. The Albanese Labor government increased Commonwealth rent assistance by over 50 per cent in 2023 and 2024, the first back-to-back increase in Commonwealth rent assistance for more than 30 years.

This supports over 1.4 million renters. We've also expanded the eligibility requirements for parenting payment single, raising the cut-off age from eight to 14, and this has benefited 200,000 single parents since 2023. We've increased the family tax benefit through indexation, benefiting 1.2 million families with children.

We've increased the small debt waiver threshold for the first time in 30 years. With indexation, the threshold has increased to $260 and will increase year on year with indexation. This means that Services Australia will no longer spend precious time and government money pursuing Australians already under financial stress for small debts that they may have accidentally incurred, which is also economically inefficient and unviable.

The agency is often investing more money recouping funds than it's getting from the debt collection process itself. In 2025-26, 1.2 million debts will have been waived. The Albanese Labor government has made it easier to access the special circumstances debt waiver for victims-survivors of family, domestic and sexual violence.

If victims-survivors' debts are the result of coercion or financial abuse, they may be entitled to a debt waiver. This is on top of the government having made the leaving violence payment permanent—that's over $5,000 in financial assistance for people escaping violence—and legislated 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave. From 1 July this year, the government has extended paid parental leave to 26 weeks, and that means parents can access up to $30,000 during their paid leave, or over $1,000 a week.

That's six months the parents can spend with their new baby during one of the most important periods of their life and six months during which parents can create long-lasting memories and important attachment. As all parents know, as difficult, stressful and exhausting as this time can be, it's also incredibly rewarding, remarkably fleeting and short lived. It's six months during which parents can plan for their financial futures and their future in work.

Changes to paid parental leave will also mean that the government will now pay a 12 per cent contribution to your superannuation, which will significantly help to close the gender gap in retirement savings for people like those who, as I said earlier, turn up at Catherine House with so little in their superannuation. Women are disproportionately affected when there's a new baby in the family.

We often are the primary caregivers, and women are often forced to give up their careers, hold back their careers or take big gaps in order to care for the new baby. The changes will mean that women can be more financially secure now and into the future. It's about supporting women who want to be mothers, not penalising them.

The Albanese Labor government has invested $183 million in the recent budget into strengthening our child support system, because parents and their children should be paid the child support that they're owed. No parent and no child's financial security should be dependent on the whims of an ex-partner deciding whether or not they want to pay their obligated child support.

In December 2024, it was reported that the child support debt was around $1.9 billion. That's $1.9 billion that many parents, usually single parents, are struggling without, and their children are going without. This is unfair to the parent and it's unfair to the children.

It's practically criminal when an ex-partner is able to maliciously weaponise the child support system in order to get one over on the other parent irrespective of the impact this has on their own children. This government's changes—the biggest changes in the child support system in nearly 20 years—will crack down on this type of financial abuse. It will mean parents have more choice and flexibility in how funds are collected from the other parent.

For parents who have private collection arrangements, better protections will be afforded to them. It will mean expanding the use of employer withholding or wage garnishment as the default payment method. It will mean increasing the use of departure prohibition orders so that parents with large debts will be compelled to agree to a payment arrangement before being allowed to travel abroad.

It will mean prosecuting individuals who refuse to lodge their tax returns to avoid paying child support. It will mean stronger powers for Services Australia to collect unpaid child support from private collection arrangements when parents decide to change to the agency collect system. These are measures about protecting vulnerable parents and, importantly, children from financial coercion and manipulation.

Parents and children deserve the certainty that they will be paid the funds that they are owed when they are owed. The amendments before us today are largely technical, but they speak further to the government's commitment to strengthening Australia's social safety net. They speak to the government's commitment to making social security more accessible and better able to help Australians in need.

Our social security system needs to be robust and fit for purpose. We must protect its integrity as it seeks to protect Australians. The amendments resolve some legacy legal compliance issues found in, for example, advance payments.

Advanced payments are granted to recipients of income support payments for necessarily larger expenses—for example, an unexpected medical costs or school expenses. Lump sum payments are issued, and the advance payment is recouped in the recipient's future payments. In 2024-25, 2.7 million advance payments were granted, and these amendments will provide legal certainty to Services Australia administering these advanced payments.

It will remove outdated requirements that, for example, Services Australia must be satisfied that the repayments for an advance payment won't cause or contribute to the recipient's financial hardship. These amendments will also provide legal certainty for advance payments obtained through self-service channels and give recipients more options to be able to repay their advance payment later.

They will ensure that recipients will no longer have to go to a Services Australia office in order to have their application for advance payment assessed and approved. This will reduce long wait times and delays when advance payments are most urgently needed. The amendments will also allow Services Australia to come to their own decision on a support payment, even if there is a case before the Australian Review Tribunal or the Guidance and Appeals Panel.

This will save individuals time and money where a positive determination on an appeal can be made outside of an ART review process. These amendments build on the Albanese government's commitment to strengthening Australia's social security system, a social security system with improved access and better support; a fairer, more transparent and more efficient system; a robust system with integrity; a social security system that works for Australians and not against them; and a system that reinforces Australia's social guarantee: when you fall on hard times, we will be there to help you get back on your feet.

We're there for each other and we back each other. I commend the bill to the House.