Despite warnings from more than 100 legal and academic experts, and 43 community organisations, Labor voted to grant police and MPs new powers to stop Centrelink payments for people accused of a serious offence, but have yet to appear before a court.
Labor defied calls to abandon the change when the Senate voted it up on November 26. The Antipoverty Centre (AC) said it does away with the right to due process for welfare recipients.
Schedule 5 was introduced by social services minister Tanya Plibersek, on October 29, as a late amendment to an unrelated social security bill — Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Technical Changes No. 2) Bill 2025.
According to AC, it seemed that Labor had hoped its sleight of hand would go unnoticed.
But the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee and Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills meant that senators, including independents Lidia Thorpe and David Pocock, and the Greens’ Penny Allman-Payne, raised concerns.
AC spokesperson Kristin O’Connell said Labor Senator Katy Gallagher falsely implied on November 23 that the Australian Council of Social Security and Economic Justice Australia had been consulted on Schedule 5.
Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians, had said on November 5 she was concerned about the lack of proper process, but the Coalition voted with Labor to defeat Pocock’s motion to remove Schedule 5.
All crossbench MPs voted to remove the schedule.
“Labor chose to adopt a [Malcolm] Turnbull policy, it renounced in 2022, that entangles policing and the welfare system,” O’Connell said. “It undermines the rule of law and separation of powers. It … fuels prejudice towards welfare recipients in the precise way that Robodebt Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes warned politicians against.”
O’Connell said the new laws involve police and ministers in individual social security decisions, which is “an attack on the presumption of innocence”. She urged Labor to invite feedback from experts concerned about the risks and disproportionate harm that will affect First Nations people, disabled people and people in violent homes and relationships.
“Welfare recipients have a right to be treated equally under the law and should not be subject to punishment before having access to legal advice for any reason, ever. This heinous new law must be reversed.”
Thorpe criticised Plibersek for her comments to Sky News saying on November 25 that they were “a gross misrepresentation of the concerns held by experts, community advocates and me regarding these dangerous powers”.
Thorpe had met with Plibersek over Schedule 5 after it had “bypassed standard parliamentary scrutiny processes”.
Thorpe cited the Australian Law Council stating that the schedule “undermines the fundamental rights to the presumption of innocence and procedural fairness”. She questioned whether Labor had considered its constitutional implications, saying the Law Council further cautioned that the measure “will create further inequity and unintended consequences … by impacting individuals’ basic livelihoods and their ability to obtain access to justice.”
She warned that traditionally over-policed and disadvantaged communities would be the first to suffer.
“This is at the heart of my concern. First Peoples have always been disproportionately and violently targeted by state institutions, parliamentary scrutiny processes, including review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member.”