Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I have certainly never taken a question from the member for Mackellar about superannuation earnings and decent retirement incomes for working Australians—something of course we are committed to; lifting superannuation from nine per cent to 12 per cent and using some of the proceeds of the minerals resource rent tax to do what government need to do to make that policy change possible. I would have thought, representing older Australians in this place, she might have a care and concern about retirement incomes. But, of course, we do not ever see the opposition ask questions about things that require thinking and policies and plans and budgeting and having a vision for the nation's future. We never hear them ask questions about those things because they do not do any thinking, they do not have any positive plans, they have never done any budgeting and they do not have any vision for the nation's future. Instead, day after day, they go out with relentless negativity that ultimately costs Australian families. If you are in the business of smashing the budget surplus, you are costing Australian families. If you are in the business, as the opposition is, of voting against positive changes in health and education, then your negativity is costing Australians families.

Opposition members interjecting—

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