Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Bowman should know better. The member for Bowman, who has got a medical degree, would have seen plenty of poor people. He would have treated plenty of poor people, yet he is going to stand up in this parliament and say it is all right for poor single mothers to be required by this brutal government to go out and work for $2.66 an hour while wealthy mothers in millionaire families are paid $3,300 a year to stay at home. This piece of legislation is an absolute disgrace, yet one after another government MPs stand up and say, ‘Aren’t we terrific; aren’t we fair; aren’t we compassionate.’ This legislation should have been thrown out. I would have much preferred to see these amendments today contain a line that repealed the legislation that was introduced and passed through this parliament last year.

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