Shanks Katrina: Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Shanks Katrina: Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure tonight to speak to the Social Assistance (Debt Prevention and Minimisation) Amendment Bill. This is a very sensible bill that addresses an anomaly in the system. In the past people who were sentenced and entered prison could volunteer whether they were receiving a State benefit a student allowance or accident compensation. More times than not they did not volunteer this information and there was a delay in the matching process between the Department of Corrections and other organisations. As soon as people are sentenced and enter prison they cannot receive any form of benefit whatsoever. This bill will start matching data from the Department of Corrections with all these other organisations so if someone is receiving a benefit that information will be matched off daily so no debt will occur. 
In the past there has been a delay although systems have been in place. In the Social Services Committee a big concern was whether a person could be mistakenly matched and the benefit stopped. There may be two people of the same name and both receiving a benefit. One goes into prison and a benefit is stopped but the wrong benefit has been stopped. There would be hardship associated with that. There were provisions in the legislation that allowed for people to be given written notice that their benefit would be cut because they were in prison and they could contest it. There was about a 21-day process before the benefit could be stopped. 
Those processes were in place but the current bill changes that. Instead of having to wait for 2 weeks the identification is done daily. It is much quicker to identify the people whose benefit must be stopped because they have gone into prison. That is actually unfair because people in prison have families. In the select committee we were very concerned about the hardship they would face because they had lost income into the home. We made very helpful suggestions in terms of putting Work and Income people in the courts and then once these sentences were passed they could liaise with the families in the courthouse work out where they could go forward the impact on their income and whether they needed any additional assistance. The last thing we want for our vulnerable families is to have their income reduced instantly when they have debts and commitments. We need things in place for those families and especially for the children in those families. That was really important to our select committee so we always had that issue at the front of our minds. 
The select committee worked as a great team I thought and that is why National supports this bill. National thinks it is a very very good bill. The unfortunate thing is that it took so long to get the bill introduced into the House. This issue is not new; beneficiaries who go to prison have been incurring debts for a long time due to the slowness in the matching system. In that time a lot of debt has come about because it has taken so long to get this legislation before the House and have it passed so it can be implemented. When we look at the statistics about debt current beneficiaries owe $337 million and former beneficiaries owe $426 million. That is a lot of debt but the select committee was really concerned about how much of that debt was owed by people who were in prison and who also had families. 
The statistics are actually very low for those who are in prison. We were told that 12 percent of them admit they are on a benefit; a very small proportion volunteered: “Yes I’m getting a benefit and it needs to be stopped instantly otherwise I’ll have debt outstanding.” The bill provides for daily matching and that will be much better and make the net much tighter. Of all those in prison who had their benefit cut only 3 percent were matched to a benefit. Of that number 115 had spouses and 5185 were without spouses. That was a really interesting statistic. 
I think the officials have just come into the Chamber to listen to this debate. I would like to recognise the work they did with the select committee; they gave us some fantastic advice.