Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I don't think it is out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker Howarth, but I respect your ruling. I will say this, though: the budget will not pass in its form. If the government wants to do anything about providing tax relief, they should stop insisting on this most fanciful of notions that they're going to have some tax relief for the top end of wage earners in seven years. If they want to actually deal with tax relief for the bulk of Australian workers today, they need to negotiate with Labor and the crossbench and, in fact, they should listen to Labor and increase the tax relief for the bulk of Australian workers, which is what we're suggesting—that's what should happen here—instead of pretending that they've got some sort of plan that's so far off into the distance it's just some mythical nonsense that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister are inventing to try to save their scalps.

The fact is that they should listen to us when it comes to tax relief. They should listen to Labor when it comes to properly funding health in this country, looking after kids in this country so they have a first-class education and, indeed, looking after working people. They could start by actually introducing the bill in the House that would stop the penalty rates decision dead in its tracks so we would not see further cuts in real wages to retail and hospitality workers.

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