Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Parramatta for giving a very detailed account of these changes that will have an impact on the childcare system of this country. As a parent who has used child care continuously over the last 10 years, I know some of the issues that the member for Parramatta raised would be of significant concern for families if this bill is to be passed. I also agree with the member for Parramatta in her contribution that, particularly around child care, we need to see more debate, more investigation and more attention just on this one part of this omnibus bill.

When I first read this bill, I said to myself, 'Wow, I know it is an omnibus bill, but goodness me there are so many measures in here that will have such a detrimental impact on so many Australians.' It is a real shame that we have a government that only talks about those who will benefit from this bill. Let us talk about those who will not benefit from this bill. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our community. I know that this legislation will have a devastating impact on the people in my community—the people of Braddon—in an electorate where we have poor health outcomes; we have relatively high unemployment, particularly in youth unemployment; and we also have very low educational attainment rates. This bill will hit those people the hardest. It makes me very sad to stand here in this place today and talk about what this bill will do for them. It will be devastating.

When you are talking about regional communities, they generally are older, they generally earn less and they generally do have a greater reliance on government support. All I have seen since being elected to this place, in a relatively short amount of time, is this constant attack from this government on those people. What I really struggle to understand is those sitting on the opposite side, those members of the National Party: when they can go back to their electorates, can they go back and look those families, those young people and those pensioners in the eye and say that this bill is good for them? The National Party are heroes at home but are cowards when it comes to being in Canberra.

Last week, I spoke about how regional inequality is becoming more entrenched in Australia. The gap of inequality between those in urban areas and those in regional areas, like in my electorate, has never been this big in the last 75 years. That gap is widening every day. This legislation will further entrench that inequality. It will affect families, working mums, pensioners and young people. It contains a deterrent for young people to find work. In some sort of sick game, the previously bipartisan approach to the NDIS has now been abandoned. Again, that is a terrible, terrible shame. This is so that the government can fund a $50 billion tax cut to big business. It makes me question the government's priorities. When I come into this place, I look at my community and see what priorities they need: access to good health, access to good education, jobs, fair wage for the work that they do and support from a government that cares. I really do not think that this government is living up to any of that.

The Murdoch press and those opposite say that this side is engaging in the politics of envy, but this is the politics of reality. The reality is that we live in regional areas. The reality is that every dollar we have we have to spend on something that enables us to live day in, day out. It is the reality of what it means simply to get by. This is what I am faced with every day in my electorate when I go out knocking on the doors. I hear stories of people struggling to make ends meet every single day.

But I am particularly really disappointed that those opposite and especially those members from regional electorates, by supporting this bill, are not standing up for the people that they represent. They sit mutely and are prepared to green flag these cruel, heartless, out-of-touch cuts. Even more bizarrely, they are being stitched up by their own coalition colleagues on One Nation preferences, and still they do nothing. So tell the Prime Minister that you have had enough, that you are sick and tired of being taken for granted, and join this side of the House when it comes to the inevitable decision on this legislation. Just for once, those in the National Party, be a hero at home and a hero in Canberra.

I do not begrudge those families from Eastern Sydney, Toorak or the North Shore. I do not doubt many have worked hard to enjoy the quality of life that they do, but I do begrudge it when the local members seek to punish families in electorates like mine that are not so fortunate. The government admits that their family payment cuts will leave 1.5 million Australian families worse off, but what do these cuts to family tax benefits mean to the people of my electorate of Braddon on the north-west and west coasts of Tasmania? Around 8,000 families in Braddon who receive the family tax benefit part A will be affected by these cuts. As a result of the abolition of the family tax benefit part B end-of-year supplement, 6,335 families will lose $354.

It is one of those things where families who receive this supplement plan their budget accordingly. It may be to buy their kids school uniforms. It may be to help pay some of the bills. On the day that this omnibus bill came out into the media—on that very morning—I received an email, a real dose of reality that I would like to read into Hansard. This is from Melinda in my electorate:

Dear Justine

In regards to the LNP government proposal to remove family tax benefit B to single parents once youngest turned 13 and cuts to the reconciliation payments for Family Tax Benefit A & B ( these historically were never bonuses ).

This topic hits close to home!!

I am a single mum with 100% care of my son who has just turned 12.

I returned to part time work when—

he—

was 6 months old and I am still working!

I don't rent my home, I have a mortgage!

Here is someone that actually has a mortgage and is going to be so hard hit by these cuts. It makes me wonder if they are ever going to be able to service that mortgage. It continues:

I struggle everyday with making ends meet.

I don't drink or smoke or really have a social life - my money goes on the mortgage, power/phone/water and food.

Going back to school this year has been extremely hard financially without the back to school bonus.

Please don't let them take the FTB away from us too, I rely on that money to pay my rego and assist with rates.

Please Justine - please stick up for those of us doing our best for our kids!

That is such a heartfelt letter from someone who just that morning heard the news that these changes were going to happen and are going to hit her in that way. These are the real-life examples that I think every single one of us in this place need to listen to, need to respond to, need to react to and not pass this bill.

Labor will stand up for Melinda and so many other families. I challenge the Prime Minister or a Tasmanian Liberal senator to go visit Melinda, to knock on her door and explain why she should take this cut to fund a corporate tax handout. I think they would be lucky to get past the front gate.

The Prime Minister's plan to punish low-income working families does not just stop with them. Pensioners, people with disabilities, carers and Newstart recipients will be hit with the abolition of the energy supplement. I have heard some members on the other side say, 'Oh, with the carbon tax gone, the energy supplement should go.' When you come from a state that has the highest electricity bill in the country, that extra payment helps pay for a bill like that. It helps pay for the rates. It helps pay for the water and sewerage. And yet we are going to see pensioners and people on these payments worse off because they will not have that money. Some people might think, 'Oh, that's not a lot of money,' but it makes a hell of a difference to these people.

My electorate has one of the oldest populations in Australia. They have already expressed their disgust at the Prime Minister's plan to have them work until they drop at 70. Instead of supporting them in their retirement, this Prime Minister wants to punish them. This government wants to create a two-tier system of pensioners.

Like a bad dream, there are more of those struggling in the community. This government wants young jobseekers to live on nothing for five weeks. Youth unemployment is also disproportionately high in regions, so once again it will be people living outside of the cities who suffer. Once again the National Party and regional Liberal Party members are happy to let down young people in their communities. Labor has opposed this overly harsh measure before and we will again.

The government always talks about young people and those on benefits needing to study or work, but the Prime Minister, aided and abetted by the National Party, wants to remove the pensioner education supplement and education entry payment, a small payment that goes some way to supporting people on income support who are trying to get ahead. It just goes to show how out of touch and mean-spirited these people are. But the most extraordinary, callous, cruel thing this government is doing is tying the funding of the NDIS to these cuts, playing off one vulnerable group of Australians against another.

I would just like to read a small snippet that was in The Examiner newspaper. TasCOSS chief executive, Kim Goodes, said:

“We’re seeing … a federal government that appears to want to attack people who are on welfare,” Ms Goodes said.

She said TasCOSS was “appalled” that the Coalition was allegedly implying the NDIS would experience a funding shortfall if the omnibus bill was not passed.

TasCOSS is an organisation that is there to advocate on behalf of those who are vulnerable in our community, the less fortunate, and they were absolutely disgusted with what this government is attempting to achieve.

Rather than me talking further on this, I would like a mum from my electorate, Lyn, to talk about what the NDIS means to her family and her son, Mitchell. In her own words, Lyn has summed up why tying this bill to the NDIS is so wrong:

From the moment they placed Mitchell on my stomach I had this gut feeling that something was so wrong, I just didn't know what or how, but I just knew.

After 3 and half years Mitchell was referred to a Paediatrician and then to a geneticist, and on the 17th November 1998 he was diagnosed with a rare syndrome, Called Floating Harbor Syndrome.

Our Paediatrician told us that Mitchell was the 12th in the world to be diagnosed.

Because to get help it was like we weren't entitled to any, being told 'we don't have the funds' to 'he isn't that bad'.

I just kept my ear to the ground and was hopeful that another piece of legislation like Medicare was coming to help people.

Well Mitchell got a letter saying we had an appointment with a NDIS Coordinator, we could not wipe the smile off our face we were so excited.

What is that when you have a child with a disability?

We never had a life; we never had support apart from my Mum who died 17 years ago.

You so called politicians who make up the so called government who I didn't vote for because you treat us people like we as dirt and wouldn't give us the time of day and who guaranteed that Medicare and the NDIS won't be touched.

You tell us to live within our means, well how do I tell our sons and daughters who have a disability to do that, you can't can you?

Let me help you Prime Minister - don't give the multi millionaire's a tax cut of 50 billion dollars, tell them to live within their means.

I can't afford a trip to Canberra but I would love to have my say to you and the government.

How cruel you lot are to begrudge the most vulnerable some tax payer dollars to make a little bit happier for them.

Think with your heart.

It won't kill you.

Mr Speaker, need I say any more.

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