Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act Regulations

Private Members Business, Notices of Motion, No. 7: The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner to move:

That regulations made under the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996 entitled Fees Notice—Fees (2025), made on 4 December 2024 and laid on the table of this house on 4 February 2025, be disallowed.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER (Morialta) (11:06): I rise today to speak to this disallowance motion. Each year, fees and charges are reviewed and adjusted, usually in line with CPI; however, the increases under this regulation go well and truly above CPI. The additional revenue appears to be imposed to assist Births, Deaths and Marriages in meeting a $1 million budget savings target.

This is an unfair and unnecessary burden on South Australians at some of the most challenging moments in their lives. We are talking about new parents who are already facing significant financial pressures. We are talking about grieving families who are dealing with the emotional and financial toll of losing a loved one. New parents and grieving families should not be asked to pay more simply to help balance the budget. The government should not be using grieving families as a cash grab to fix their budget problems.

A $5 increase may seem small in isolation, but the reality is that these costs add up and, at a million dollars across the scale of what this budget is doing to South Australians, it is this cohort of South Australians being asked to add up these extra pennies for government, which is unfair. At a time when South Australians are already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, the government should be looking for ways to ease financial pressures, especially on grieving families, especially on new parents, not add to them.

There is an increase from $62.50 to $67.50 (an 8 per cent jump) for registering changes of names or gender, processing applications for identity acknowledgement certificates, making corrections to entries or printing any standard form; a 5.3 per cent increase for printing death certificate extracts; and a 16 per cent increase for producing a digital historical record. The parliament should send a clear message to this government that we are not supportive of adding to the many costs during some of the most vulnerable times in people's lives, especially during a cost-of-living crisis.

A $5 increase may seem like nothing to the government and it may, in isolation, be a low amount but it comes on top of the increases in food, it comes on top of the increases in electricity, the increases in water, the increases in every aspect of people's lives. I think that these percentage increases being above CPI is unnecessary, unfair, and should be opposed by this chamber.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 16

Noes 27

Majority 11

AYES

NOES

Motion thus negatived.