Cash splash on legislative books for gov't

The federal government's legislative priorities in autumn include bonuses for job seekers who find employment and hardship assistance for farmers.

Apprentices will get $20,000, job seekers up to $6500 and farmers a special hardship allowance if the coalition government gets its priority bills through parliament in autumn.

It hopes to introduce and pass legislation to establish a farm household allowance to give assistance to farmers and their partners experiencing financial hardship.

Another priority is setting up a new scheme where long-term unemployed people get a $2500 bonus for finding and keeping a job for a year, and another $4000 if they keep the job for two years.

The government also hopes to introduce relocation assistance to help jobseekers move to get permanent employment and $20,000 income-contingent loans for apprentices.

Other changes to workplace relations laws are also scheduled for the five weeks of sittings in February and March.

Another priority is to overturn a modernised regulatory scheme Labor set up for registration of agricultural and veterinary (agvet) chemicals, which was set to start on July 1.

Labor's changes required chemicals to be re-registered which the coalition said would increase the regulator's workload and be an expensive process.

The government also has flagged legislation to continue the Roads to Recovery program and set in stone the increases to cigarette taxes which began in December.

House leader Christopher Pyne also intends to introduce an omnibus red tape reduction bill on March 19 and hold his first "repeal day" a week later on March 26.


2 min read

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Updated

Source: AAP


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