Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, you would not want to be sick for a few years under this government—exactly! That is what they have at their heart. They do not believe in Medicare. They never have, they never will and they can never be trusted with it.

These zombie measures are called 'zombie' measures for a very good reason. They are the walking dead. They are not able to get through this parliament. But we know that if the government had any single opportunity to put them back here and to ram them through the Senate—if they got any inkling that any of the crossbenchers might think, 'Oh, I might change my mind'—they would be back in here in the blink of an eye. That is what the government would absolutely do.

Their failure to defend this—they have probably gone in and had a bit of a tactical debate about how to handle this debate this morning and what to say: 'Less is more, less is more guys; this is really how we should manage this debate'—is because they know that the more they say on this, and the Prime Minister probably said a little too much today to Fran Kelly, the more they expose themselves for who they truly are. They truly are mean spirited. They want to attack the vulnerable at every single opportunity.

The member for Jagajaga reminded us that they decided Mother's Day is the day that they are going to tell mothers: 'You're double dipping and you're frauds, when it comes to paid parental leave.' It is a scheme that has been ensuring that mothers and fathers are able to care for their children at their youngest, that they are able to continue to engage with breastfeeding—a significant and important health measure. We should be actively supporting and providing every opportunity for women to breastfeed their children. That is what paid parental leave is designed to do: provide that support in those early days. Here they go on Mother's Day: 'Let's attack mothers.'

We know what this government truly thinks at its heart. We heard the Prime Minister, on Fran Kelly today, being asked the question: are these good or bad measures? I am sure he was holding his glasses as he spoke, clutching those glasses and waving them about, making sure that we all knew how sincere he really thought he should be at this stage. He said, 'It's really not a matter of whether they are good or bad. It's really not a matter of that at all.' In fact, it is a matter of that. These are bad measures. Labor has been saying they are bad measures from the start, when we had the lifters and leaners budget. It was bleedingly obvious that they were bad measures to everybody in the Australian community except for this government, because at its heart this government believes in them. It believes in these measures absolutely.

This government wants to attack the most vulnerable in our community. It wants people on concession cards, some of the poorest in our community, to pay more for their medicines. It wants some of the sickest in our community to pay more when they try to access the services that they require. It wants to attack mothers who want to access paid parental leave, and in fact tried to demonise them as it got these measures through this place. At every single opportunity this government will attack the most vulnerable. We know that at any opportunity they have to reintroduce a single one of these measures that is what they will do. The minister's silence in this debate absolutely says it all.

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