Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am a little disappointed but I am not surprised. Normally Senator Payne makes a reasonable contribution to this chamber, but to come in here and try to lecture this government about homelessness and housing and the cost of living is a bit rich. We cannot let those opposite get away with that without mentioning that they had 12 years in government and did nothing.

Homelessness was put on the agenda by the Labor government. If you are really concerned about the cost of living and the cost of housing, why did you, only this morning, vote against a measure which was going to support families in educating their kids? By voting against the schoolkids bonus not only yesterday in that other place but here in this chamber today, you again demonstrated your inconsistency and your lack of appreciation of how difficult it is for families out there to educate their kids and of how well received this bonus is going to be in the community. It is becoming part of everyday debate in this place—those from the other side coming in to lecture us about what we have not done. But they fail to acknowledge that for 12 years they were in government.

They lecture us about the disability sector. But throughout all the time I spent on the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, throughout all the committee inquiries we had while those on the other side were in government—inquiries in which they participated—they were not prepared to make the tough decisions. We have made those decisions. We have embarked on a scheme which is going to address the needs of those in our community who have disabilities and the needs of their families. But we are not even sure, when push comes to shove, that Joe Hockey and those opposite are actually going to support this scheme.

We have already, in this budget, allocated $1 billion over the next four years to introduce this scheme. We are not going to rush in without consulting—we are going to make sure that the reform is going to address the areas of critical need. People with disabilities, their carers and their families have waited a long time, but at least we have taken the action. We have actually put it in our budget.

In talking about the budget, it is interesting to note the misinformation about what is or is not in the budget which is constantly circulated. I will just touch on one example because I think it is important to correct the record. Yesterday, the media were running with a story put out by those on the opposite side that we had failed to allocate money in the budget for the Freight Equalisation Scheme—totally untrue.