Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Moore, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes the division and dysfunction in the Coalition Government over the Prime Minister's unaffordable and unfair Paid Parental Leave Scheme; and

(b) calls on the Government to release the details of the Prime Minister's scheme, including its costs and modelling that quantifies productivity and distributional impacts.

I am pleased to debate this motion of Senator Moore's. It notes the division and dysfunction in the coalition government over the Prime Minister's unaffordable and unfair Paid Parental Leave scheme, and it also calls on the government to release the details of the Prime Minister's scheme, including its costs and its modelling that quantifies productivity and distributional impacts.

We have heard much from the Prime Minister about how this rolled-gold Paid Parental Leave scheme will improve productivity and workforce participation. But, from opposition to government, the coalition have changed significantly, because they now no longer require a fact based approach to legislation. They no longer require any econometric analysis when it comes to the Prime Minister's pet scheme. That is the rolled-gold Paid Parental Leave scheme that will provide $50,000 to some of the wealthiest families in the country to have leave during the period after the birth of a child. At the same time, they are ripping asunder the social security system and the welfare system that provide some fairness and equity for people who really need fairness and equity and government support in this country. So, on one hand, it is support for those millionaires and high-paid families in the exclusive suburbs of our cities, and yet there is no support for the families in the bush, in regional Australia and in the outer suburbs of our cities. It is clear that when anyone seeks to criticise the budget—including those opposition senators who criticise the budget both in the chamber and publicly and in the media—they are accused of engaging in class warfare.

I was appalled to hear the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, at the Sydney Institute, lecturing and talking to all of those highly paid, wealthy individuals, saying again, 'The age of entitlement is over.' I think someone who has worked all their life as a cleaner, a boilermaker, a truckie or a welder is entitled to a decent retirement. They are entitled to some security in their old age because they have made a huge contribution to this country. The argument that they are some type of 'leaner', that they are not a 'lifter' but a 'leaner', I think is an appalling smear on Australian retirees and pensioners.

It is okay for Senator Cormann and the Treasurer to kick back when the budget has been signed off and relax with their $50 Havana cigars when some people are surviving on $35 a day on Newstart. Their celebratory cigar was worth more than an individual gets on Newstart for the day. So I just think this argument about class warfare is an absolute joke. Criticise the coalition for ripping away at pensioners, ripping away at the education system and ripping away at the health system and you are engaging in class warfare, according to the Treasurer. Well, I think it is okay. The Treasurer can retire with his Havana cigars to his mansion on the North Shore. He can retire to his weekender worth over $1 million in Stanwell Park, overlooking the ocean. He can head off to his cattle station up in the Northern Territory. He is doing okay. He does not understand what it is like to be an ordinary family battling away, trying to educate their kids, trying to send their kids to school, depending on some support from the government to put food on the table. The Treasurer would not know anything about that, and neither would the Minister for Finance. I would say that many, if not the majority, of the coalition would not understand what it is like to battle to pay your rent, to battle to pay your mortgage and to battle to pay your debts. And yet we have these throwaway lines that 'the age of entitlement is over'.

Well, I think Australians are entitled to a decent society in this country. I think they are entitled to a society where they can feed their kids, where they can educate their kids and where they can send their kids to get medical help when it is required. Handing $50,000 of Commonwealth money to some of the wealthiest people in this country when you are telling ordinary families that they have to sacrifice, that they have to be lifters and not leaners, that they are not going to be entitled to decent increases in their pensions, that family tax benefit A will be cut and that family tax benefit B will be cut I think is the height of hypocrisy and arrogance from the coalition.

I can understand why the Prime Minister and the Treasurer do not see this as a big issue. Because if you look at their electorates, at the family recipients getting family tax benefit A, you will see that in North Sydney there are 3½ thousand. But if you go out to Penrith, in the western suburbs of Sydney, you will see that there are 13,000-plus people relying on family tax benefit A to help put food on the table. If you go out to the electorates of Lindsay and Chifley and to the Mount Druitt area, you will find that there are 18,779, nearly 19,000, families depending on some government support to put food on the table, clothe their kids, get transport to and from school and get transport to and from work. These are the real battlers out there, who are just being absolutely wiped by this government. In the Prime Minister's seat of Warringah, there are 4,000 family recipients, compared to Chifley, with 18,779.

One thing I cannot understand is why the National Party are not even more rebellious against the Liberal Party's push for this rolled-gold Paid Parental Leave scheme. Because if you look at some of the National Party seats, out on the north coast of New South Wales in Page, you will see that there are 12,476 recipients of family tax benefit A and in New England, where Senator Williams comes from, you will see there are 12,654. So you can see there is an issue of class and it is a class attack by the wealthy, the Havana-smoking coalition cabinet ministers, on the working-class people in this country. That is what we are seeing before our very eyes.

The government are saying that you should actually cop this, that you should cop $50,000 going to the millionaires in the eastern suburbs and the north shore of Sydney—$50,000 to go and have a baby. Yet the poorest people, who are really battling, and pensioners are being told, 'You will not get a rise consistent with the rise that has been paid in the past; you will go to CPI payments,' which, over a period of time, is a massive cut in the pension. These are the sorts of decisions that are being made in this budget: look after the rich and the wealthy in this country and stand on the head of the poor.

If Joe Hockey wants to have a debate about class, then let us understand what class is. Class is an issue where, if you live in some of the poorer suburbs, towns or cities of this country, you are battling to get a decent school for your kids. But if you live in the leafy north shore of Sydney, you can make the choice, with your massive executive salaries, to send your kids to a private school and they will be looked after. Those families do not have to worry about whether family tax benefit B or family tax benefit A will be cut or whether their grandma or grandpa will get a decent increase in their pension. They will still be able to give their grandkids a quid when they need it. They will still be able to look after their grandkids. But the people in Mount Druitt, in Penrith or in the outer suburbs of Tamworth will not be able to do that. They are battling just to survive. So the class issue is quite clear in terms of the Hockey budget—that is, the working class, the poor class, the underclass in this country are getting hammered and the upper class will hardly be touched.

You do not hear a lot of whingeing from any of the politicians either in this chamber or in the House of Representatives about the increase in tax. I have known what it is like not to be able to pay my bills. As a blue-collar worker, battling when I came to Australia as a migrant, I know what it is like not to be able to pay my bills. I know what it is like not to be able to pay my mortgage. But I will tell you: I do not know about that now, in here, because as politicians in this country we are very comfortable indeed. No-one in this chamber will miss a two per cent increase in their tax. But what will happen in two years time? That tax hike will be gone for the political class in this country, and the working class, the pensioners, the retirees, the superannuants will continue to suffer for years under this Hockey budget.

That is why you have heard more being run this week about the demonisation of refugees, the demonisation of boat people, all because the government want a diversion from this horrible class-based budget that they have brought in. They want to talk about anything but the budget. The health minister cannot answer a question that has been raised by the AMA, that has been raised by some of the most eminent physicians in the country about the problems of that extra $7 tax when you go to see a doctor.

Let me tell you: $80 billion cut out of health and education at the same time as handing out $50,000—$5 billion—to some of the richest people in this country is an absolute outrage. Unfortunately, I spent the weekend at Penrith hospital. At the weekend one member of my family spent two days in emergency, because there were no beds in the hospital. When finally we got a move on the third day, we sat on two seats in the surgical ward for hour after hour after hour.

Yet this lot over here, the rich, mighty and arrogant coalition, want to cut $80 billion out of hospital funding and education funding. They want to make sure that, if you life on the North Shore or the Eastern Suburbs, you get looked after with paid parental leave. You will be able to afford the best schools. You will be able to afford the best universities. But, if you are a working-class kid in a working-class family battling to get along, you are going to be hammered, because fees are going to increase for your education and the cost of a degree is going to go through the roof.

These are the issues that the public are looking at. Is it any wonder the coalition want to talk about refugees and carbon tax? They want to talk about those issues when the public have moved on. The public now realise that the carbon tax will not destroy the economy. They realise that refugees are human beings, yet all you get from this half-hearted, heartless coalition are these arguments and they will not engage on the issues of importance.

They run this argument that there is a great economic crisis, a catastrophe. No-one in the world believes this. No-one else looks at Australia and says that Australia is a country in economic crisis. Give us a break! They know that Australia is one of the richest countries in the world and, as one of the richest countries in the world, we should be looking after our citizens. We should not be using a false argument. We should not be doctoring the books as the coalition have done to try and create a so-called budget crisis. We should not be doing that.

We should be building a decent society, a good society, where every family can get a fair go. If you criticise the unfairness of the coalition's budget, they immediately go to the budget emergency that nobody else believes is a budget emergency. They start demonising asylum seekers and refugees, and now they are moving to some of the poorest people in our country—people on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, people on Newstart, people on disability payments—and demonising them.

You have only got to look at what is being done through the Murdoch press, supported by this coalition. I don't know who supports who; I think it is quite a team happening there between the Murdoch press and the coalition. But is all about demonising the poorest people in this country and at the same time running this false argument that providing $50,000 to the richest people in the country would provide a great productivity boost.

Look at the Canadian experience. Look at Ontario. The issue is not about getting paid parental leave; it is about child care. Ask any family what the issue is for them. Talk to my daughter. 'Wacka' Williams went on Latelineand just wrecked the coalition's position on it. Senator Macdonald came out and asked questions about this issue and wrecked the coalition's position on it. I know the issue for my daughter when her grandkids were not at school was actually getting them into some child care. That is the issue.

This is a bad budget. It is a budget based on lies. It is budget based on deceit. It is a deceitful government, and you are paying a price and we will pay a price.