Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (2014 Budget Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 and related bill

The majority voted against amendments introduced by Labor MP Jenny Macklin.

Ms Macklin explained during the second reading debate that these amendment would "remove the following from the legislation:

• cuts to pensions through the indexation changes;
• increasing the pension age to 70;
• abolishing the seniors supplement;
• the resetting of the social security and veterans' entitlements income deeming thresholds, effectively another cut;
• cessation of the pensioner education supplement;
• the removal of the three-month backdating of the disability pension under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986; and
• the pause to indexation in the income-free test areas for all pensioners."

(Read Ms Macklin's speech during the second reading debate here.)

Because the majority voted against these amendments, they were unsuccessful.

Background to the bills

The Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (2014 Budget Measures No. 1) Bill 2014 and the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (2014 Budget Measures No. 2) Bill 2014 were introduced to implement a number of budget measures. These measures include pausing indexation on certain government payments, ceasing certain payments and changing the requirements for certain payments.(Read about these changes in more detail in the explanatory memorandum for the former bill (2014 Budget Measures No. 1) here and latter bill (2014 Budget Measures No. 2) here. )

Although several of these welfare measure were to become effective from 1 July 2014, Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews has said that it is unlikely that they will pass through Parliament by then.(See ABC News for more information.) In the meantime, the government payments will continue unchanged.