Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It was not so long ago that the Leader of the Opposition said people who earn $180,000 are not rich. Now, apparently, people who earn $87,000 are millionaires! Now, apparently, he wants to back away from a commitment to a National Disability Insurance Scheme that is paid for by everyone who is eligible to pay the Medicare levy, which of course has protections for people and families on very low incomes. Nonetheless, that commitment was there. It is a National Disability Insurance Scheme. Everybody benefits. The half a per cent extra obviously represents a much larger amount for people on high incomes than it does for people on low incomes. The equity, the consistency and the transparency of our proposal were self-evident to the Labor Party a few years ago. Now, apparently, for no reason other than political convenience, they are not. The honourable member is not a member of the shadow cabinet—no doubt she will be, in due course—but I believe that, in her heart, if she had been there in the shadow cabinet, she would have joined the other three quarters of that group and told the Leader of the Opposition he was wrong, he was unfair and he was all tactics and no principle.

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