Mr ANTHONY (Minister for Children and Youth Affairs) (9:46 AM) — On behalf of the Minister for Family and Community Services, I move:

The purpose of the bill is to give effect to the 2001-02 budget initiative to bring the payment of Australian pensions to people overseas long term in line with international standards. It also equalises the rules under which overpayments are recovered from people receiving foreign pensions.

The rate of Australian pensions paid in Australia does not depend on a person's length of Australian residence. However, Australian pensioners residing overseas on a long-term basis are paid a `proportional' rate that reflects their length of Australian residence. Currently, to be paid a full pension after an absence of longer than 26 weeks, pensioners overseas are required to have 25 years of Australian working life residence. Other countries require that people contribute for around 40 years before the full rate of pension can be paid, and often there are further restrictions on the payability of these pensions outside those countries. To bring Australia in line with international standards this bill extends the required residence period to 30 years under the Social Security Act 1991.

The bill also further recognises the valuable contribution that senior Australians make to our community. The bill allows people who defer their age pensions and register with the Pension Bonus Scheme to add their bonus periods under the scheme to the Australian working life residence period they accrued before they reached age pension age. As a result they may be paid a higher long-term overseas rate.

The amendments made to the Social Security Act 1991 in relation to the Australian working life residence will only apply to anyone who departs Australia after the commencement day of the amendments. A person who is absent from Australia on the commencement day will be subject to these amendments only if they return to Australia and stay for 26 weeks or more.

The bill also equalises the treatment of debts incurred by people who receive lump sum payments of foreign pension.

Where a person receives lump sum arrears of a comparable foreign payment from a country with which Australia has an international social security agreement, the overpayment of Australian pension for the period covered by lump sum is recovered. In contrast, where the same type of lump sum payment is received from other countries, no debt is currently incurred. The new debt recovery provision in the Social Security Act 1991 ensures that overpayments of Australian social security payments arising from these arrears payments are debts and that they are recoverable. I present the explanatory memorandum to this bill.

Debate (on motion by Mr McClelland) adjourned.