Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for her question. She understands that around 43,000 pensioners, carers and families received Economic Security Strategy payments in her electorate of Kingston, and of course those payments were very important to supporting jobs in her community. Unlike those opposite, she understands that families, pensioners, carers and people with disabilities are doing it very, very tough in these economic times. We have provided considerable support to those people through our economic strategy payments in December last year and from this week we will be going further with our Nation Building and Jobs Plan.

In fact, in December four million pensioners and 1.9 million families benefited; they got some extra help from the Economic Security Strategy payments. The payments got a big tick from a wide range of different organisations—the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group through to National Seniors, Carers Australia and the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations. All of these national organisations supported the government’s Economic Security Strategy payments. One organisation did not—of course, those sitting opposite. We all remember the excruciating period the Leader of the Opposition took the Liberal and National parties through. They could not decide what their position was; they flip-flopped all over the place. Of course, at first they supported the payments; at first they supported the package. Then they said they wanted to change them, then they did not support the package, then they voted for the package, and now here we are three months later and they are wishing that they had not supported the package. The Leader of the Opposition is now saying he wishes that all of those people, 1.9 million Australian families and four million pensioners, had not received those Economic Security Strategy payments—quite remarkable when you consider what happened with the December retail figures, which demonstrated the biggest monthly increase since August 2000. As the Australian Retailers Association said:

… the Rudd government has done its job with the $10.4 billion stimulus package …

But according to the Leader of the Opposition, the Retailers Association are wrong. In his desperation—you can only call it desperation—to score a political point, the Leader of the Opposition is trashing his economic credibility and also trashing his moral credibility by no longer supporting these payments to Australian pensioners and families.

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