Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's budget will cost pensioners $4,000 a year and force Australians to work until they are 70. Now that the Treasurer has confirmed that the government is looking at further cuts, will the Prime Minister guarantee the family home will not be included in the pension assets tests—as recommended by his Commission of Audit?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The once proud Labor Party is reduced to this pathetic spectacle of scare after scare after scare. Really and truly, it is pathetic to see the party of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating reduced to this—a party which was, along with John Howard and Peter Costello, very significantly responsible for building the prosperity of this country.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about your party and its racist policies?

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Perth will remove herself under standing order 94(a).

The member for Perth then left the chamber.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After 25 years of economic reform, after 25 years of good government, we then had six years from members opposite. They were wreckers in government and now they want to wreck government. That is what we get from the Labor Party. On the question raised by the member for Scullin: every year, under this coalition, pensions will go up. Every six months, every year, pensions will go up. They will go up this March. They will go up this September. They will go up next March and they will go up next September. They will go up the March after that and they will go up the September after that.

An opposition member: They will not go up as much.

The shadow minister opposite says that they will not go up as much. What is he saying they will not go up as much for when the member for Scullin was asking about cuts to the pension? They are just telling lies—and they cannot decide which lie they are telling us today.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Madam Speaker: the question goes to a specific recommendation about the family home in the report of the Commission of Audit.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a wide-ranging question, as the Manager of Opposition Business well knows.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That particular recommendation was ruled out the day the report was released.