Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Labor Party is morally bankrupt. Those opposite are morally bankrupt. The strategy that they have clearly employed is twofold when it comes to older Australians. No. 1: they lie; No. 2, they tax them. Lie and tax, lie and tax, lie and tax—that's Labor's strategy. I think the two pillars of this strategy go hand in hand, because the trick of the Labor Party is to create crises that don't exist. It's the old look-over-here strategy: generate such concern, such anxiety, in older Australians and put their focus elsewhere, on a problem that does not exist, so that the Labor Party can pick their pockets with higher taxes.

Indeed, this is precisely what we are seeing with the Shorten-led opposition, and it is a disgrace. We saw it last federal election with the 'Mediscare' campaign, which those opposite have laughed at every time it's been mentioned in this House because they know it was based on a lie. I put to them: how many older Australians bought into that lie? How many older Australians with heart problems, age problems and loneliness sat in their living rooms and believed Labor's lies? How many of them felt as though they were under threat? How many people in the seat of Longman, up in Queensland, are believing the outright lies of the Labor Party about less federal government funding for hospitals? It's an outright lie; the facts tell the opposite story. How many people are tuned in to this debate? How many older Australians are listening yet again to Labor's lies and being affected by them?

They do this unashamedly. They enter this House and they communicate to the public and they generate fear and anxiety among older Australians based on nothing—lies and tax. If we look at the facts, in 2010-11 $9 million was cut from aged care under the Labor Party. The next year, 2011-12, the Labor Party cut $200 million from aged care—

Ms Collins interjecting—

And they think it's funny, if you hear the laughter from across the House. In 2012-13, $135 million was cut, and I do not see the humour in it. If you are going to rip the guts out of aged care and then go on the attack and try to create fear campaigns based on nothing, then you shouldn't be entering this House.

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