Mr MOSSFIELD (12:56 PM) —The purpose of the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Disability Reform) Bill (No. 2) 2002 [No. 2], as outlined in the Bills Digest No. 157 2001-02, which was drawn up to support the first attempt to introduce the Family and Community Services Legislation Amendment (Disability Reform) Bill 2002, is:

In lay terms, this legislation means that people who are assessed as being able to work for 15 hours each week will be taken off the disability support pension and put onto Newstart. Further, this bill also affects those people who are on Newstart or Youth Allowance and are temporarily unable to work due to injury or disability. Even if somebody is in this position and has been assessed by the doctor as being unable to work for eight hours a week, they will still have to look for work and apply for a job they know they cannot perform in order to fulfil their so-called mutual obligation. Clearly the government's attempt to force people off the DSP and onto the dole is not acceptable to the general community. The economic effects of such a move will result in these people suffering a loss of $60.20 in income each fortnight—or, to put it another way, approximately a 12 per cent drop in income. They will be put into a soft labour market that discriminates against older workers and workers with disabilities.

This bill modifies the earlier bill that I have been referring to, which was subsequently withdrawn by the government. Like the first bill, this bill seeks to give effect to the government's 2002-03 budget measures to alter the eligibility for people to receive disability support pensions. This is an important point: this really is a budget measure. It is all about money; it is not about looking after people with disabilities. If the government can push 200,000 people off the disability support pension and onto the dole with a cut of some $60 per fortnight, you can see that this would appear to be a substantial amount of money—although, as I will say later, maybe it is not.

The government care more about money than they do about the lives of people on disability pensions. That gives you an indication of the conscience and morals of this government. This bill proposes to save existing recipients of the disability support pension from the new rules. It also proposes that the new rules apply only to people seeking the disability support pension who apply on or after 1 July 2003. The fact that they are doing this just highlights the hypocrisy of the bill. The government seek to make two classes of disabled, based not on the level of disability but on the date of application and assessment.

Schedule 1 of this bill seeks to amend the current work test for people applying for a disability support pension and those having their entitlements reviewed. This schedule seeks to alter the definition of work capacity from 30 hours a week to 15 hours. It should be noted that the current test is whether a person is capable of working 30 hours a week inside a period of two years and follows a medical determination that the person has a disability. The legislation also has the effect of giving the secretary of the department greater flexibility in making a judgment about whether, with appropriate intervention, a person has the capacity to work at the threshold level or above within the two-year period.

One of the most disturbing aspects of this legislation is the changes that people over the age of 55 will experience. As I have said previously, this bill seeks to remove the ability to consider local labour market conditions and consider the wider market conditions instead. As a result, an individual within 10 years of retirement, on the disability pension and living in a community with negligible labour market programs or employment options would no longer have this taken into account, and in many cases may have their payments cut as a result. The department's own figures, provided during the Senate estimates hearings, have confirmed that approximately 103,700 claimants for the disability support pension would have their applications rejected over the forward estimates period—that is, to 2005-06. Many will, of course, be eligible for a Newstart allowance but we must remember that that is $60.20 a fortnight less than the DSP. Also, a small proportion would qualify for no payments at all. So 103,700 people will lose at least $60.20 each fortnight. That is what the department tells us. I suspect the figure may be higher but for the moment I will accept the department's figures.

So 103,700 people at $60.20 per fortnight saves the government just over $162,311,240. This may sound like a lot of money. It is not a lot of money to people like Kerry Packer and others in our community, but it is to the average Australian—until we consider that the total budget of this government is a touch over $170 billion. The $162 million that the government wants to take away from the disabled pensioners represents only 0.09 per cent of the total budget outlays. In the true context of the budget figures, this is not a large amount of money.

Access Economics has estimated that the war in Iraq is costing us $700 million—a figure described by Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald today as quite cheap. The government spent $102 billion pork-barrelling with local road funding. Then there is the outrageous $2.2 billion spent each year on subsidising private health insurance companies—a figure that is going to grow massively with ongoing increases in premiums. The $162 million for disabled pensioners is, quite frankly, chump change. Do not forget that the $162 million is the maximum saving assuming all 103,700 people lose their pensions on day one. This, of course, is not the case. As we know, the figure of 103,700 represents three years worth of people losing their pensions progressively over time so that the actual savings will be a great deal less. In fact, the government will save far less money and it will be an even smaller percentage of the total budget than I have predicted.

It is a testament to this government's mean-spiritedness that they would choose to take money from disabled pensioners in such a way while at the same time doing nothing about cracking down on family tax trusts or corporate excesses. It will also be counterproductive to the stated aims of the government's supposed intentions for this bill. They say that they want more participation in the work force by those with disabilities—something we would probably all agree with—but this is just a bad way of going about it. Let us say that someone who is on a disability support pension at the moment is offered a 20-hour a week job and they take it to get more experience. If the job runs out or they find they cannot work the hours, when they reapply for the DSP they are put under the new rule of 15 hours a week and told, `Sorry, you can work; you're off the DSP.' I would caution everybody about this, and would not be surprised if people were not prepared to take a job under these circumstances in the first place. Why threaten your current arrangements for ultimately less money? This could be counterproductive in getting people on the DSP back into the work force.

Labor will oppose this bill because it is mean, nasty and, ultimately, counterproductive. I also draw the House's attention to the lack of speakers supporting this legislation on the other side of the House. This is becoming a common practice now on contentious issues. I recall that only a fortnight ago there was contentious legislation before this House which made it more difficult for low-income people to get a wage increase, yet there was only one government speaker, besides the minister himself, supporting the legislation. There were some 13 opposition speakers. The same is happening today: there are five opposition speakers and two government speakers, but one went AWOL so it looks as though there will be only one government speaker supporting this legislation. I do not blame them—I can understand the embarrassment.

As I said, Labor will be opposing this bill. The shadow minister in his second reading amendment has moved:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“the House declines to give the Bill a second reading, and

(1) condemns the Howard Government's attempt to deny Disability Support Pensions to more than 100,000 Australians living with a disability over the next three years;

(2) condemns the Government's attempt to create two classes of people with disabilities by seeking to pay many of those who apply for a Disability Support Pension after 1 July 2003, $60.20 a fortnight less than people currently receiving the payment;

(3) endorses the view of the ALP supporting the need for welfare reforms that offer the opportunity for people with disabilities to participate fully in the community, including to work;

(4) refuses to support Government cost cutting that will discourage people with a disability from seeking employment; and

(5) calls on the Government to work with the ALP on a bipartisan basis to achieve real welfare reform”.

In conclusion, I am opposing the bill and supporting the amendment.