Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Never has Senator Polley uttered a truer word than when she said that the Gillard government has put homelessness on the agenda. You can be assured that this budget, which taxes and taxes Australians and which sends Australian jobs overseas, means that people with mortgages will have their mortgages foreclosed upon—creating homelessness. Homelessness is something the Labor Party knows about because they create it. When this budget sends Australian jobs overseas, closes down coalmines, closes down the jobs of many Australians—and even the government in its shonky budget is forecasting an increase in unemployment—you can be assured that Australians will get to know about homelessness.

I now only have 55 seconds to speak in this debate. It is typical of the Labor Party—everything is guillotined. We had the fiasco this morning of the parliament spending hundreds of millions of dollars after only a couple of hours debate and no real consultation whatsoever. On this important subject of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, we are left with only a couple of minutes of debate because the Labor Party has again curtailed and guillotined proper debate in this chamber. All I can say on the matter of the insurance scheme is: if only the Labor Party would learn from Senator Fifield about how to introduce a scheme, rather than continuing with its program of lies, deceit and spin. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.