Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Three or four lines later, the member for Grayndler, the minister for infrastructure and Leader of the House says, ‘I’ve given you the commitment, Steve, which is that, when it comes to the carers and seniors bonus payment, carers and seniors won’t be a dollar worse off and, secondly, that any carers and seniors payment the government makes this year will be paid up-front.’ They are the commitments that there are. That is quite clear-cut. If the Leader of the Opposition is going to stand at the dispatch box and misrepresent a transcript when putting a question to the parliament, frankly, I think he should hang his head in shame. When it comes to the certainty which is required by carers and pensioners with their bonus payments, we will make sure that those carers and pensioners will not be a single dollar worse off and, beyond that, that that payment will be made in a lump sum within the financial year.

What I find remarkable about this entire exchange is that the newborn party of compassion, which lodged its birth notice last Friday, registered its death notice with its earlier remarks, when the member for Wentworth said that working families do not deserve a decent outcome when it comes to the minimum wage.

See this speech in context