Turner Judy: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Turner Judy: Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
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JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak to Part 1 of the Future Directions (Working for Families) Bill. What an amazing night it was last night! The outcomes for families in this bill are certainly more substantial than any proposal I have heard to date from Opposition parties. In fact I would challenge National members in particular who are talking about replacing this legislation to flesh it out for us and tell us with what they intend to replace it. Certainly nothing they have spoken of previously would lead us to believe that families will be better off with anything they are proposing. 
The gap has widened between benefit-derived incomes and work-derived incomes and the moral mandate alone to address that gap is huge. The evidence is unmistakable and my understanding and memory serves me to say that Muriel Newman from ACT has often brought to the attention of the House the fact that children in working families—statistically anyway—do better on a whole range of measurable outcomes. Here now is the chance for families previously disadvantaged through pursuing employment to be on the winning team. The only conclusion I can come to is that the ACT party and possibly its National Party friend prefers sticks to carrots when it comes to encouraging families to take up the opportunity to work. 
 However United Future does see some areas that need improving over time and I will mention a couple of those. The first is the foster care allowance which is still even under this legislation substantially better than the unsupported child allowance. For grandparents raising grandchildren that is a real issue. Even the Children’s Commissioner has highlighted the concerns she has regarding grandparents who are often on fixed superannuation incomes having to deal with children who come into their care. We have to understand what the issues are for those families. By and large they are raising traumatised children who have come out of extremely difficult situations. Therefore it is often difficult for the grandparents to work; their hands are full in dealing with those children. 
Hon Member 
: Why wait 2 years? 
JUDY TURNER 
: They will not be helped even in 2 years’ time because the grandparents have to be working grandparents to get the full benefit of what is on offer here. And the truth is that many of those grandparents give up work to put time into those children who are in a bad way. So in terms of future directions for this legislation United Future would like to see some real improvements. We would like to see of course that those kinship caregivers are given the full foster-care status we believe they are due. 
The other interesting area United Future still wants to champion of course is income splitting. What income splitting does and what this bill does not do is recognise the contribution of a parent at home. In fact what the Government is saying and what it was saying even prior to this legislation is that it will supplement children through proxy childcare but it will not specifically recognise parents who stay at home and do exactly the same job. United Future is concerned about that and we think it is something that can be addressed in the future. 
We are also concerned that this legislation lets employers who employ low and medium income workers off the hook a little bit with regard to the improvement in the wages they pay. I would like to invite the Minister in the chair the Hon Steve Maharey to explain to us the new rules-based approach to the new temporary additional support benefit. United Future understands that very low-income beneficiary families in particular have unexpected circumstances that crop up—the whiteware breaks down or a dental bill comes—and the income they receive does not stretch far enough for them to cover those kinds of eventualities. So we understand the need for an opportunity to jump in sometimes and help out. What we are not clear about and what we would like the Minister to explain to us is whether these new rules make any difference to the numbers of families with ongoing debt-management problems.