Wong Pansy: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Wong Pansy: Social Security (Social Assistance) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:624;Page:19577] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I rise to take a call with slight apprehension in case there is a barrage of interjections. The lack of courtesy shown by the Minister in the chair Steve Maharey was quite scary. Dr Muriel Newman was trying to make some very valid points which we could all benefit from hearing. Instead I was struggling to hear the reasonable arguments put forward by that ACT party member. Labour members have shown that as usual they have no time for anybody whose opinions differ from theirs and show no courtesy to fellow members of parliament. 
I have just learnt from the Minister’s 10-minute call on Part 1 that what he proposes in terms of the penalty for a mother not 
naming the father of a child will not work. Now in Part 2 we are being asked to look at amendments—additional changes—that have to be made to the income tax legislation. Well the House had a painful job just last year passing the Income Tax Act which is over a thousand pages long and which for the first time consolidates all the various income tax amendments into one single statute. All the tax practitioners out there were just about to breathe a sigh of relief and the poor staff at the Inland Revenue Department were saying that at long last there was one statute of a thousand pages and they could get on with the job but what has the Government done? It has introduced legislation that not only will not do what the Government wants it to do—as we were told by the Minister—but also will complicate the Inland Revenue Department’s work. 
Actually it is quite interesting because on the one hand Part 1 introduces a penalty of a reduction in the benefit of $6—which actually is not going to punish anybody—but on the other hand the Inland Revenue Department has been told to administer the Working for Families package brought in by the Labour Government which actually increases the benefit. Not only will the penalty not make people behave in the way that is intended; in effect the bill is doubling the workload of the Inland Revenue Department. The benefit introduced through the Working for Families package probably more than compensates for the $6 penalty. 
The Government continues to tell the public that it is serious about reducing compliance costs throughout the private sector and the public sector but this legislation is actually increasing those costs. We all know that when the Inland Revenue Department has more work the Government introduces more staff the public sector grows bigger and eventually guess who has to pay for all of it? So I really think the Minister in the chair Steve Maharey should think carefully about why he has introduced this legislation in the first place which will not do what he intends it to do and will actually introduce more complications into the income tax legislation. 
The other thing we learnt is that in promoting the Working for Families package the Inland Revenue Department by itself has to design a policy about alerting people to those benefits. I want the Minister to take a call and say whether he would devote attention to publicising the intention of this legislation to ensure that a mother names the father of her child in the same dedicated manner as the Government is allocating over $20 million to promote the Working for Families package. Why is there uneven treatment in terms of promoting the policy? Would the Minister take a call and say how much he has allocated to promote the intention of this legislation? 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The question is that Part 2 stand part. All those in favour—