Senator MARK BISHOP (3:24 PM) —I move:

Yesterday and today debate in this place and media comment has concentrated on issues relating to corporate governance and the reaction of the current government to problems deriving from a string of corporate collapses and corporate abuses. Those companies are well known: large, well-funded public entities—Ansett, One.Tel and HIH. The reasons for their collapses are equally well known: fraud, forgery, poor or non-existent management supervision, poor, inadequate or nonexistent board oversight, director negligence, director culpability and poor inadequate or nonexistent regulatory oversight by various agencies of the Commonwealth. The reaction of the current government is equally on the public record. The government has indicated there will be shift only on the margins; by and large it is satisfied with the status quo. There is no intent to have a radical shift or change in policy. Policy is marked by inattention, lack of adequate regulation, lack of accountability, refusal to enforce the law and refusal to fund properly regulatory agencies, and there are no enforceable rules that affect the big end of town—those large companies that I have identified. The government appears to be more than satisfied with corporate collapses, shareholders losing their interests, superannuants losing their futures, employees losing their jobs and service providers and suppliers and a myriad companies losing their contracts and the consideration therein.

You contrast that approach of doing little, of doing nothing, with the approach to recipients of benefits under the family tax package, the subject of several questions to Senator Vanstone. Details of that package are well known. The government, in introducing the package some years ago, said the changes were going to mean more money, greater benefits and more simplicity for families. The design features of the scheme are equally well known. Proposed recipients advise Centrelink of their anticipated income and then advise Centrelink of actual variations to the proposed income that occur from time to time in an economy such as ours. The recipients receive family tax payments based on the information provided, as amended, to Centrelink, and at the end of the financial year there is a balancing activity. Overpayments are recovered as debts; underpayments are paid out. And the overpayments are, by and large, stripped back through the taxation system.

It is an apparently simple system, designed to assist families in financial need, that has resulted in chaos and a total mess. The figure is not in the thousands or the tens of thousands but in the hundreds of thousands—650,000 last year. One-third of all Australia's recipient families received an incorrect payment. They received either an underpayment or an overpayment. Either way, there had to be an adjustment, and it had to be done through the taxation system. Of the two million families who received the payment, 650,000 families received it in error. By being in error, those families are characterised as being welfare cheats, as being potential criminals. All of this is a direct consequence of the design features in the family tax payment system.

Last year the government was well aware of this. It was raised in estimates, and the opposition warned of it before it became a fact. There was a large amount of correspondence from families, and the government became particularly aware of the problems. And what did it do? It gave a waiver of up to $1,000 for each family to recover the debt. The debt of those who owed up to $1,000 was waived. Last year was an election year, and that was a one-off gesture which went down very well. This year, the financial year has just ended and we have another 600,000 families in debt but there is no magic pudding. Even if families do as they are supposed to do and report changes to their income, the flawed family payment system does not adjust their payments correctly, leaving them with a massive debt which the government strips out by way of repayment via the tax system. So families sign up, they provide variations, they provide amendments, debt continues to accrue and they have to repay it. And then, out of a relatively modest refund that most families gain of between $500 and $1,500 per year, it is taken back by surprise, and plans that were made cannot be put into effect. (Time expired)