Wed, 14th May 2008

Labor's stealth means test

The Hon Tony Abbott MHR
Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector

In last night’s Budget, the Government ended the Child Care Benefit for families earning more than $110,000 a year.

Section 57F(1)(b) of the child care legislation states that an individual is “eligible for child care tax rebate…if…the individual is entitled to be paid the Child Care Benefit…”

The Government’s Centrelink website states that “if you are not eligible for the Child Care Benefit, you will not be eligible for the Child Care Tax Rebate”.

On the face of the legislation and the Government’s own advice to potential recipients, the Government has wittingly or unwittingly imposed a means test on the rebate as well as on the benefit.

Is this a stealth means test or has the Government, through inexperience and overeagerness, forgotten to announce that it intends to change the existing legislation?

How many more budget mistakes will the new Government turn out to have made?

The Government must urgently clarify how it intends to change the law and the advice it gives to people. Otherwise, it has plainly been misleading in its claims last night that families earning more than $110,000 a year would lose the benefit but keep the rebate.