Ms JACKSON (7:30 PM) —I rise tonight to discuss the family assistance payment scheme and the difficulties being experienced by some of my constituents in the seat of Hasluck. I think it is particularly relevant given the questions that have been put to the Prime Minister in recent days about the operation of the scheme and the changes that have recently been made and how those changes will not assist families who find themselves in a situation where they have incurred a debt through no fault of their own.

I have a constituent who lives in the city of Gosnells, Ms Peta Harbin, a sole parent who has been in receipt of the family tax benefit for her two children. Throughout this period the Child Support Agency was responsible for the assessment and collection of child support for Ms Harbin's children. Ms Harbin's rate of FTB was calculated throughout this period on a month by month basis using the actual assessment method, which is also known as the disbursement method. She is, as I said, a sole parent with two dependent children. Her income throughout the period was derived from her part-time employment, as well as her part parenting payment and child support payments for her two children and her family tax benefit payments.

She was actually advised by a Centrelink officer to initially go onto the disbursement method for calculating her FTB as she had been receiving no child support payments yet her FTB was being reduced as if she had been receiving the assessed amount of child support. She had advised Centrelink that she found it was almost impossible to manage when she received a substantially reduced rate of FTB and little or no child support payments for the month. Ms Harbin has said that she thought the only thing she could do now to avoid any future debt was to overestimate her income, something that she initially attempted to do through the earlier payment method and found that she simply could not meet all of her bills in any monthly period.

Ms Harbin has now been advised two years in a row of a substantial debt that has been incurred through no fault of her own. As I indicated, Ms Harbin first had a debt in the year 2000-01. That debt was assessed at $554.80. Even though subsequently in the pre-election environment the government waived the first $1,000 of any such debt and so she was not required to pay that amount, she continued to pursue a review and appeal of the decision because she was frightened that, given that her overpayment occurred through no fault of her own, she would incur additional debt. That is precisely what happened. She received a letter from Centrelink dated 2 August this year which advised her that she had a recoverable FTB debt of $1,173.46 that had been incurred through the most recent financial year, 2001-02.

At no time has she provided any estimate of her income—that information is provided by Centrelink. Each month the Child Support Agency advised Centrelink of the amount of her child support payments and adjustments were made to her family tax benefit. So through no fault of her own an overpayment occurred and there was nothing she was able to do to address that. To give you some idea of the level of her income, with all those payments her gross income amounts to $860 per fortnight and her mortgage, car payments, day care expenses, insurance, petrol and groceries amount to at least $795 per fortnight. That is, of course, not considering costs such as phone, electricity and gas accounts as well as clothing costs, car and house maintenance and all those other expenses that any family has. She took the matter to the Social Security Tribunal, and I quote from the tribunal's decision. It said:

(Time expired)