Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill

I think it’s appropriate that I give some context to what we are debating in the committee stage in the Chamber today.

The Families Package (Income Tax and Benefits) Bill that passed in December 2017 didn’t fully cover all those who received winter energy payments last winter—1 July to 29 September 2018. All winter energy payments were made in accordance with the policy intent of the winter energy payment. The error sits with the drafting of the legislation.

The policy intent of the winter energy payment was that the following two groups of people should receive the winter energy payment: people receiving Government funding for their long-term residential care or residential care services but who are not eligible for residential care subsidy or residential support subsidy, or people who travel overseas for more than four weeks during the winter period who should receive the winter energy payment for the first four weeks of their absence. The legislation does not reflect that, hence why we have introduced the Social Security (Winter Energy Payment) Amendment Bill. With regards to the impact, approximately 3.3 percent of people who received the winter energy payment last winter were not fully covered by the legislation. However, it was intended that they receive the winter energy payment. There have been no negative impacts on clients as a result of the current legislation or the proposed amendments in the bill. The proposed amendments give effect to the original policy intent and are therefore policy neutral. The amendments also align with current operational practice.

The amendments proposed ensure that people in two specific scenarios can be paid the winter energy payment lawfully, both retrospectively for 2018 and also in the future. The current legislation in the Social Security Act 2018 means that people in these two specific scenarios are currently not eligible to receive the winter energy payment even though it was intended that they be eligible. These are people receiving Government funding for their long-term residential care or residential care services but who are not eligible for a residential care subsidy or residential support subsidy. It was intended that only people receiving the residential care subsidy and residential support subsidy be excluded from receiving the winter energy payment, and then also people who travel overseas for more than four weeks during the winter period at any one time. It was intended that these people were eligible for the winter energy payment for the first four weeks of absence, up to 28 days, regardless of how long the absence is.

I know that there has been some discussion about how this drafting error occurred. I think it’s important to note that it was a drafting error, and drafting errors are never ideal, with regards to the business that we are looking to undertake within this House. It was picked up in April last year initially and work has been undertaken to ensure that the right decisions were made for how this should be rectified.

The main thing was to make sure that it was rectified before 1 May 2019, when the winter energy payment starts again, so that the legislation does match up with the policy intent. I will say also that criticism has come about the drafting error and the fact that it took a while. Yes, it’s taken 16 months not only to work out that this mistake has been made but then to look to addressing the mistake. But, as I discussed, I think during one of the question times that we had in the House last week, this is not the first time where there has been drafting errors. One that I pointed out was a drafting error or a change that was made and went unnoticed back in 1998 that had an impact on stand-down periods that, as I said, went unnoticed. Effectively, in 2015 I think, that was picked up and then changed so that we were acting lawfully, and there were implications to that one because, actually, there was then a period of time set aside so that people could claim the day that they may have lost from the stand-down period having been changed without anyone realising it.

So, with this one, can I say that there are no fiscal implications with respect to money that was actually given to those who receive the winter energy payment, because the policy intent was realised. It is the legislation that didn’t match up. So, to us, it is very clear that people were not incorrectly paid, because the policy intent was realised. So now what this is an attempt to do is to make sure that the legislation matches the policy intent and, as I said earlier, now we can make sure that everything is corrected in time for the roll-out of the winter energy payment in 2019, beginning on 1 May. Thank you, Madam Chair.