Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition senators did provide a dissenting report. There are a number of reasons for that, and I want to go through some of those. I preface my remarks by saying that there is no doubt that, when we look at overseas experience, particularly in developing nations, and see one part of society that is dirt poor and another part that is fabulously wealthy, no-one sees that as a good thing. So let's make that clear. Let me also make clear that there are many Australians who do it tough. We want to see that those who are doing it toughest are given the opportunity to better their circumstances, to have the best possible opportunities to put a roof over their heads, to feed their families, to educate their families, to have good health care and to have a good standard of living. We in the coalition are constantly working towards this goal.

Where we differ significantly from our opponents on the left of politics is on the issue of how we define these things, in particular when we look at opportunity. Opportunity does not necessarily lead to equal outcomes. Equal opportunity does not mean that everyone does exactly the same, because there are all sorts of factors that go into the relative prosperity of different people in our community. Senator Siewert touched on that when she highlighted the issues in WA. This is where we differ significantly from many of those who made submissions, many of those who gave evidence and many of the findings from the Greens and the Labor Party. Senator Siewert seems to think that the WA experience is a terrible one, that it is a bad one. I take a different view. If you look at the WA figures—they are cited in the report—you will see that, yes, in WA the gross household income of the top eight deciles increased by an average of 46.5 per cent between 2003-04 and 2011-12. In comparison, the bottom two deciles increased—it says 'only increased'—their income by an average of 28 per cent. Yes, the top moved forward more quickly than the bottom, but let us do another comparison. Let us do a comparison with Tasmania, which, based on the Gini coefficient, which is used heavily by those opposite, is in fact the most equal. It is also the poorest.