Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Child Care Measures) Bill 2014

The majority voted against an amendment to the original motion that the bill be read a second time, which was:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the House declines to give the Bill a second reading as:

(1) the Government has failed to provide sufficient information about the impact on families of the changes to the Child Care Benefit;

(2) the Government has not completed an assessment of impacts on workforce participation of the changes to the Child Care Benefit;

(3) the changes to the Child Care Benefit should not be legislated just weeks before the Productivity Commission inquiry into Childcare and Early Childhood Learning provides its interim report;

(4) families have not had a chance to have their say on these changes; and

(5) for these reasons, calls on the Government to remove the changes to the Child Care Benefit, set out in Item 2 of Schedule 1, from this Bill, to allow separate and fully informed consideration by the Parliament of the changes to the Child Care Rebate and the Child Care Benefit."

Because the majority voted against this amendment, it was rejected.

Background to the bill

The bill was introduced primarily to amend the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 in order to:

• maintain the indexation pause on the Child Care Rebate (CCR) limit at $7500 for three years from 1 July 2014; and
• maintain the Child Care Benefit (CCB) income thresholds at the amounts applicable as at 30 June 2014 for three years from 1 July 2014.

Normally, the CCR limit and CCB income test thresholds are indexed on an annual basis to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). These measures constitute a freeze on the annual indexation of these amounts.(Read more about these measure in the bills digest. )

The Government announced this freeze on the indexation of the CCB income test threshold in the 2014–15 Budget. It is part of a broader measure that affects the indexation of income test thresholds for major welfare payments.(Read more about the background to the bill in the bills digest.)