Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two years on, it does not matter what you call it—lies, cons, misleading, not-entirely-true, misinformation—but the Abbott government has failed to be honest with the Australian people. It does not understand the many consequences of the decisions that it makes nor the impacts those decisions have on ordinary Australian people, good hardworking people. And you could get no further how out of touch this government is than the way in which it has misled the Australian people when it abolished the Clean Start guidelines.

The Prime Minister stood up in this place and said that no cleaners would be worse off as a result of this government abolishing the Clean Start guidelines. Well, he was wrong. Within months of the Prime Minister making that bold declaration, the cleaners who clean the Department of Defence copped a $6,000-a-year pay cut. That is a lot of money to somebody who is on a low wage. That is taking money out of their children's school expenses. That is taking money out of the pockets of hardworking government cleaners. We have seen it happen again and again. This government is out of touch. We have had two years of misinformation, two years of misleading conduct, and it is going to continue unless this government starts to listen to the Australian people and the concerns that they are raising.