Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Disability Reform) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks very much for his question, because this Labor government does understand that families have a lot on their plates and can do with every extra bit of help possible. That is why we are delivering extra assistance through our household assistance package. I can inform the House that 1.6 million families have already received additional assistance in the last fortnight to help them with their bills now and their bills in the coming months. We know that every single one of those people on the other side of the House wants to claw that back from every single family—1.6 million families you want to claw it off. That is also why this side of the House wants to deliver another increase to family payments, put in this year's budget by our Treasurer, to make sure that we deliver extra help to Australian families. This was once more opposed by each and every person on that side of the parliament. Of course, it is why this side of the House is also delivering the schoolkids bonus. Extraordinarily this week the member for Menzies has said that he thinks it is not that difficult, actually, to collect all your receipts. It just demonstrates how completely out of touch all of the people over there are. Listen to the families who complain about how difficult it is to collect their receipts, the one million families who are missing out because of the previous system. This side of the parliament will make sure that those one million families get the extra money they need and that they get it when they need it. That is what this side of parliament will do.

Mr Christensen interjecting—

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