Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2019

The majority voted in favour of a motion to support the bill's main idea. In other words, they voted in favour of reading the bill for a second time.

What is the bill's main idea?

According to the bills digest, the main idea of the bill was to:

• amend the residency requirements for Age Pension and Disability Support Pension (DSP) so that, in order to qualify for these payments, a new claimant must have:
• ten years continuous residency in Australia including at least five years during the person’s working life (age 16 to age pension age) or
• ten years continuous residency in Australia and the person must not have been in receipt of an allowance or student income support payment for a period or combined periods exceeding five years when they were aged at least sixteen years (whether or not these periods in receipt of income support occur during the ten year qualifying residency period) or
• 15 years continuous residency in Australia;
• stop payment of the pension supplement after six weeks of a temporary overseas absence, or immediately for permanent departures; and
• increase the maximum liquid assets waiting period (LAWP) for Newstart Allowance, Youth Allowance, Austudy and Sickness Allowance from 13 weeks to 26 weeks.