Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We asked the Prime Minister not once but several times today: would he spell out exactly how many Australian families will see a reduction in their family payment? How many Australian families? And this slippery fellow, currently in the position of Prime Minister spoke, about the childcare changes. He deliberately understands and chose to ignore and mistreat question time and not tell the Australian people the truth. He knows our question is that, on one hand, in order to pay for some childcare changes, he is reducing the payments to over one million Australian families.

Mr Porter interjecting—

We hear the Minister for Social Services interjecting. If you were doing your day job properly, Sunshine, we would not be seeing these cuts to family payments.

The key to the dishonesty of this government—and including all of the members of it—of today's legislation is they want to stand there and pat themselves on the back. They want a bunch of flowers, probably give themselves the afternoon off, because they say, 'Look at us. We're proposing some legislative change in child care.' But the proof is in the numbers. They are reducing what they pay to Australian families by $2.7 billion over the next four years. It is in black and white in their explanatory memorandum.

Here we have the Prime Minister saying, 'Look over here at what we're doing at child care.' But what they seem to forget is that after kids go to child care, they go to school. When they go to school, there are costs and family payments. Then we had the Minister for Social Services get up and say, 'Because Labor has previously supported some means testing, therefore they have got a blank cheque to rob a million Australian families.' No, you don't. And I thought: where have I heard this proposal from the government before? The 2014 budget. You rolled the poor old member for Warringah but now you are actually in a new camouflage and a new suit selling the same rotten changes for the Australian people.

At least the member for Warringah said it for what it was. This fellow here will say and do anything to keep his job—a $50 billion tax giveaway for multinationals and large companies. You can tell a government not just by the personality but by the priorities of their policies. And the Australian people are onto you: $50 billion principally going, a tax ram raid on the budget to large companies. That is their great economic plan. They do not talk about the old Trans-Pacific Partnership anymore—that lasted less time than your proposal to increase the GST. Their economic plan is a $50 billion corporate tax cut and your other plan is to make that be paid for by going after Australian families. We draw a line in the sand on this $2.7 billion cut to family payments. We are not buying it, and the Australian people are not buying it.

This is a government who did not have a great summer—they lost their health minister, they did the robocalls on the Centrelink recipients. We heard about Mr Heynatz up in the seat of Rankin. We heard about the question from our shadow minister for social security. These are real people. This Prime Minister says the opposition is not asking questions about important issues. We are focusing on the people. We are focusing on the pensioners. We are focusing on standing up for those on Centrelink. In Labor, we do not think that every Centrelink recipient is automatically, default a cheat. We do not treat our fellow Australians as someone deserving of having a clumsy system mail-out.

Then today we see the legislation on family payments. This government have proposed, in their legislation today, cuts not just to families of school-age children but to pensioners. Of course over the summer some bright spark in the government thought up the idea that they should spy on our veterans to see if they really have PTSD by monitoring their social media. I thought those opposite had had a bad summer—and we will not even go near the donations debacle of the biggest donation in history—but do you know what? It has been looking like a summer of joy in the last 48 hours. Not only have we given up on the government; their South Australian senator has given up on the government.

We will keep fighting to defend family payments. We will keep fighting to expose the charade of this government's position. At the heart of this government's position is the following proposition: they say on one hand, 'Look at us; aren't we good? We are doing some things in child care,' but on the other hand, all through this question time, they have not answered the question: 'How many Australian families are having a reduction in their payments?' I tell you what, my respect for you might go up an inch or two, Mr Prime Minister, if you would come to the dispatch box and spell out how many Australian families of school-age children are losing or seeing reductions in their family payments? You have ducked and you have weaved over that question all through question time, but no matter how often you duck and weave, no matter how often you hide from it, we will get that number out of you. We will speak up for Australian families.

This is a very divided government. Their only plan for the Australian economy is to kill the confidence of Australian families. They treat people on the pension as somehow second class. They treat people on Centrelink as somehow second class. I actually thought, in the first three question times of this week, the beleaguered Minister for Human Services would have enough self-respect when asked a question about Centrelink to get up and say, 'I'm sorry; we got it wrong.' Just a bit of humility would go a very long way, but that is not the trademark of this government.

Mr Sukkar interjecting—

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