The federal government has signalled it may relax some of the new welfare measures it plans to impose on grandparents and single parents, the treasurer, Scott Morrison, has conceded.
Morrison told the Daily Telegraph he would work with Labor to protect grandparents in order to pass broader changes to the family tax benefits system.
“If Labor comes to us, I am sure we can come to a reconciliation on this issue of single parents and particularly grandparents,’’ Morrison told News Corp on Sunday. “I mean we can sort that out tomorrow if they are genuine. It’s simple; you could just keep the grandparents exactly where they are now.’’
Labor was less than conciliatory about the compromise.
“We don’t give the government a medal for dropping stupid ideas,” the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, told reporters on Sunday.
“We are just surprised they raised them to begin with. The government needs to make the case better than it has.”
Last week Morrison announced a softened policy position on the proposed changes to family tax benefit part B. Among the changes was the raising of the age at which the benefits cut out from six, as proposed in the 2014 budget, to 13. It now cuts out at 18.
But last week’s proposal also included reduced payments for single parents and caregiver grandparents.
“What we do know is that grandparents, as well as single-parent families with teenage children, will be hit particularly hard as a result of these cuts,” the shadow education minister, Kate Ellis, told reporters on Sunday.
“Now the government cannot argue that these cuts are based on fairness when you consider that it is parents and grandparents who survive on a low or middle income who are being targeted in order to find savings for the government.”
She added: “This is yet another display that we may have new leadership, but we have the same old policies and the same attacks on the Australians that can afford it the least.”
Morrison said Labor’s arguments were based on the false premise that grandparents did not want to, or could not, enter the workforce.
“The assumptions that single parents can’t and don’t want to go to work when they have teenage children who are in high school I think is a bit rich given that Labor assumed if they had a child who was six they could go off parenting payment and go on to Newstart,” he said. “I mean, there is no consistency over those two arguments at all.’’
Morrison left the social services portfolio last month, following Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to the leadership. On Thursday his successor, Christian Porter, was repeatedly asked to outline the impacts of changes to the family tax system by Labor during question time.
“We would acknowledge that a grandparent carer is probably the cohort where their ability to re-enter the work place is more limited than other cohorts,” Porter said in response to a Labor question. “Their assumption is that a grandparent carer can never re-enter the workplace and that is a ridiculous, old-fashioned notion which has no bearing to reality. Both single-parent carers and grandparent carers have the capacity.”
Turnbull said Labor was nit-picking individual measures without looking at the overall impacts of welfare changes. “The revised package, introduced by the minister for social services, must be considered in the context of a range of Australian government family payments,” the prime minister said.
The proposed changes to family tax benefit B had stalled in the Senate, failing to secure the support of Labor, the Greens or the majority of crossbenchers. The revamped compromise deal could see a loss of $6bn in expected revenue, but the government hopes it will offer enough compromise to finally pass the Senate.
Independent senator Nick Xenophon is still not convinced of the merits of the proposal.
“When parents aren’t able to look after the kids it’s often the grandparents that take that role so I think it’s really important you don’t have disincentives in place for grandparents,” he told reporters on Sunday.
“I still have a number of serious concerns about the government’s package,” Xenophon said. “To ignore the big end of town while having a go at those on welfare doesn’t seem to be a level playing field.”
