Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you. So I hear the Minister saying that she won't talk about things that aren't on the bill but there are tabled amendments in relationship to this issue. If she doesn't want to support them that's fine but what it is in the bill is an overall bill that it is creating impacts on how incomes change for those on the lowest incomes and an intent to push people into paid employment. Now the consequence of the way that Part 2 is outlined and of the very very marginal changes that she's making to the minimum family tax credit do have consequences for the people who continue entering employment with a minimum family tax credit that is out of date in the way that it is being set up. And rather than just pushing back my argument as though it is not related to what we're discussing I'm asking the Minister to engage with substance on the issue of how we then support people entering the workforce—particularly those with children—to then have enough to get by. Otherwise as I said the settings as they are and in relationship to what my amendment is trying to address—so yeah the settings as they are basically create a perverse outcome for people entering the workforce where they're not adequately supported in the way they would have been say in 2006. Because since then wages have moved costs have moved and we have gone through a period of high wage growth as well which means that really affects those abatement thresholds—sorry not abatement thresholds; it changes the rate or it affects the point at which that abatement starts kicking in and therefore creates situations where families may be thinking How much am I actually better off in employment as a result of that and how much am I actually supported if I've got a family when I'm thinking of moving into employment?"So I think in some ways she's actually undermining the work she says she wants to do by not supporting my amendment by leaving things as they are bar very very very minor changes to the prescribed amount in the family tax credit from $34216 to $35204. So that's something I'm really really keen to unpack because she is changing that amount ever so slightly but not the threshold to which it starts abating. So if she's just changing that amount ever so slightly but not the rate it abates she's actually condemning many families who are entering the workforce to not receiving support that matches the current realities that we're experiencing. [Bell rings]CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I call Ricardo Menéndez March.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Sorry I'll just ask in relationship to—CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I'm expecting new material.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Did she seek any advice or did she engage with groups such as the Child Poverty Action Group? I'm trying to now unpack on Part 2 in relationship to engagement with stakeholders or conversations she would have had with organisations that have been advocating to changes to the minimum family tax credit. Has she engaged with published reports and research from groups like Child Poverty Action Group and others who have called for changes to the minimum family tax credit? And the reason why I'm now moving into engagement on literature and stakeholder groups is because the issue that's been addressed in my amendment is not new. So when deciding to shift that amount ever so slightly I'm interested to know who she's engaged with basically. What level of advice has she sought about the impact that just changing the amount would have for those people entering the workforce? And if she didn't engage with anyone I'm just really curious—and I'm pleading in good faith—for the Minister to engage with the reality of increasing that amount slightly but the abatement threshold not changing. I won't relitigate that part that much but I just genuinely am asking for that engagement in relationship to how Part 2 affects people entering the workforce and then getting the minimum family tax credit in the way it was intended to."