Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is now official that this government has abandoned Western Sydney. The residents of Western Sydney, who once may have thought that they had a special place in the heart of this government, have now woken up to the way that they have been treated. It is clear that Western Sydney Liberal MPs have not been standing up for them. The member for Lindsay cannot be bothered turning up to party room meetings to present the views of her constituents. While she might be the mouthpiece for the Prime Minister in leadership stoushes, she is certainly not the mouthpiece for Western Sydney in this place. When was the last time that you heard the member for Lindsay, the member for Macarthur or the member for Greenway spout anything other than the government line on issues such as petrol pricing, interest rates or industrial relations?

My Western Sydney Labor colleagues have known for some time that the duplicity of Liberal members for Western Sydney would be exposed sooner or later. We knew that they could not keep up this carefully crafted facade forever. We know that Liberal members prefer to look down on the people of Western Sydney. They might like their votes but they do not like the people. The contempt that has been shown to the people of Western Sydney, which lies at the soul of the Liberal Party, was laid bare this week.

The member for Lindsay, before she  was silenced by her boss, belled the cat when she said that the Treasurer lacked empathy for the battlers of Western Sydney. But the member for Wentworth took lack of empathy to new heights. On Monday he took it to a new level altogether when he said that interest rate rises were overdramatised. I still hear that he is wondering why people were so shocked by his comments. His glib comment came from the very soul of the Liberal Party. It showed just how uncaring this government is.

Interest rate rises certainly hurt the people of Western Sydney. They hurt families in Western Sydney. They hurt families with mortgages, they hurt families with credit card debt and they hurt families whose budgets are strained by high petrol prices and increased private health insurance premiums. They hurt every single person who believed in the government’s false promises and half-truths about interest rates during the last election. Interest rates will certainly hurt families who lose their overtime payments and penalty rates as a result of the government’s extreme and unfair industrial relations laws.

And how do these Western Sydney Liberal MPs respond? The member for Macarthur told his constituents that he has no problem with jobs that do not pay overtime, do not allow for meal breaks and do not pay penalty rates. You can read that for yourselves in the paper. He went on to say that if they do not like it then they do not have to take the job. He said that they can always start their own small business. I was stunned when I read his ignorant comments on industrial relations as a whole. The letters page in the Macarthur Advertiser bears out that I was not alone, as these comments have generated a huge response from the people of Campbelltown. The arrogance and the unfeeling, uncaring and uncharitable nature of the Liberal Party and its members were on display once again.

Major cracks are appearing in this government. It is struggling to keep the true feelings of its members from the voters of Western Sydney. It is struggling to come to terms with the fact that the people of Western Sydney and the suburban areas throughout the country feel betrayed by this government. Residents of Western Sydney, workers of Western Sydney, know that they are not sharing in the prosperity that this government crows about. They know that their families, their friends and their neighbours are not well off to the point that the government claims, and they know that they are at the sharp end of the government’s extreme industrial relations changes. They also know that they are going to be the ones who will lose their overtime payments and their penalty rates and who will be forced to sign unfair AWAs. They know that Work Choices for them means no choices. They are scared and they have every right to be.

The people of Western Sydney also know that this is the direct result of failed representation by Western Sydney Liberal MPs. Western Sydney coalition MPs have not stood up for them or for their families. If the member for Lindsay thought she was skating on thin ice and doing some fancy footwork on the Channel 9 program, wait to see what she has to do at the next election. (Time expired)