The federal government holds 550 pages of material showing the detailed impact of $4.8bn of planned cuts to family payments but has refused to release them on the basis that it would take bureaucrats too long to review the documents.
The Department of Social Services said a lot of the material was contained in Excel spreadsheets and the 100 hours needed to process the freedom of information request would be a “substantial and unreasonable diversion of resources”.
The Labor frontbencher Jenny Macklin was seeking all of the scenarios the department had produced showing the impact of the government’s revamped social services bill on particular types of families and grandparent carers. She was also asking for all modelling that estimated those impacts.
The department’s FOI decision maker wrote back on Tuesday saying searches had identified about 85 documents, consisting of about 550 pages of material, falling within the scope of the request. A lot of the material contained “information that is the subject of current government deliberation”.
“Furthermore, a significant proportion of the material is contained in Excel spreadsheets, meaning that a significant amount of decision making time will be required to review the documents, make a decision on each page, and in respect of the Excel documents, each worksheet, and modify the documents under section 22 of the FOI Act so that they do not disclose exempt or irrelevant material,” the letter said.
Macklin, the shadow minister for families and payments, accused the government of hiding the impact of the cuts. “It’s disgraceful that this government is increasing the cost of living for 1.6 million families with these cuts, and not even telling them exactly how much worse off they’ll be,” she said.
“Why is the government blocking this information from being released? It’s time the Liberals told the truth to families about their budget cuts and tax increases.”
The government emphasised FOI requests were not handled by ministers but by departments, and said that in this case a final decision was yet to be made.
In the letter, the department’s decision maker said the intention to refuse the request fell under section 24 of the FOI Act, which refers to practical reasons such as the unreasonable diversion of resources.
But the department foreshadowed further talks with Macklin so she could consider revising the scope of the request “so that the practical refusal reason no longer exists”. For example, she could limit the request to one of the two categories of information originally sought, or seek all detail about a particular measure or a particular family type, the letter said.
Tony Abbott’s government struggled to secure Senate support for changes to family payments outlined in the politically contentious 2014 budget, and Malcolm Turnbull’s government announced a revamped package in October aimed at securing net savings of $4.8bn over four years.
The new bill would phase out family tax benefit supplements, while removing family tax benefit part B for couple families when the youngest child turns 13 - a measure the government argued would encourage people to reinter the workforce by the time their children were in high school.
Family tax benefit part B rates would be cut from $2,737 to $1,000 per year for single parent families with a youngest child aged 13 to 16. The $1,000 rate would also apply to grandparent couples caring for a youngest child in this age range.
The package would also increase family tax benefit part A fortnightly rates by $10 per child aged up to 19 - a measure the government said would benefit about 1.2 million lower income families. There would be a similar increase for youth allowance and disability support pension recipients aged under 18 and living at home.
The standard annual rate for family tax benefit part B would increase by $1,000 for families with a youngest child aged under one to “provide more choice for families when their children are very young”.
The social services minister, Christian Porter, argued the package would simplify the payment structure, provide more assistance to families when they needed it most, and was fiscally responsible.
When the government announced the revised package, it attached four brief “cameos” to its media release showing the impact of the family tax benefits changes, excluding the supplement changes, when considered alongside the childcare reforms.
They included a single mum who earns $34,000 a year from working two days a week, when she sends her three-year-old son to long daycare. She would “be around $38 a fortnight better off in 2018–19 when the families package is fully implemented”, the government said.
All of the four selected scenarios related to people who would be better off overall.
The parliamentary library summarised the impact of the package in its independent analysis of the bill: “Overall, the measures will see an increase in FTB-B rates for families whose youngest child is aged under one year, accompanied by a reduction in payment rates for all FTB-A families, a significant reduction in FTB-B payment rates for single parents and grandparent carers with teenagers, and the loss of FTB-B for couple families whose youngest child is aged 13 or over, and for single parents and grandparent carers whose youngest child is aged 17 or 18.”
Labor said it would support only $500m of the proposed savings, forcing the Coalition to return to protracted negotiations with Senate crossbenchers. The Coalition linked the passage of the savings to the separate childcare package that foreshadowed $3.5bn in additional spending.
