Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to address what I see as cynicism from the other side of the House. There has been some discussion of the hypocrisy—I think that has been well covered and proven—but I want to comment on the cynicism and what has been happening over the last couple of weeks. This story about bonus payments broke in the media towards the end of last week, and the opposition immediately jumped on it, saying: ‘We’re going to whack the government around the ears for taking $1,600 off people. It is outrageous. How could those people possibly survive, having lost that money?’ When the Prime Minister made it clear that, despite the debate about the nature of the payment within the budget process, he would guarantee that carers and pensioners would not be $1 worse off, what did the opposition do? They panicked: ‘How do we keep this rolling as a political issue? How do we continue to get some political mileage out of this? I know; we’ll make it about the fact that it is a lump sum payment. We’ll say that they can’t do without a lump sum payment. They are not capable of handling any other sort of payment. It has to be a lump sum payment.’ That is what today is about. Today is about a last-ditch political attempt to try to drag out an argument that gives the opposition something to say in this House.

The reality is that, if this one-off lump sum payment is so vitally important—so absolutely critical—to the wellbeing of carers, what did the opposition in government do about it for four years? When they brought it in the first time, one would assume that carers said: ‘Thank you. Finally, a lump sum payment. That is what we’ve always needed,’ and the previous government would have said: ‘That was a great idea. Obviously, it is important to these people. We’ll make it a permanent payment.’ Did they do that in the first year? No. Did they do it in the second year? No. What about the third year or the fourth year? No. Did they ever make it an election promise? If it is so critically important and they were so profoundly concerned about carers, did they make it an election promise? No. Now the opposition have come in here and are trying to tell us that our commitment that carers will not be one dollar worse off is not good enough. Why is it not good enough? Because it does not suit the opposition’s political advantage. That is the only reason: because the commitment that carers have been given is that they will not be one dollar worse off.

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