Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

One of the first decisions that we as a government sought to implement on coming to power, courtesy of the support of the Australian people, was to remove the $550 impost per average family household of the carbon tax—no thanks to the Labor Party, who promised the pensioners of Australia no carbon tax and then implemented one. They then went to the election saying there would not be a carbon tax and they would get rid of it, and then they constantly voted against it, until, thank goodness, there was a breath of fresh air in the Senate, with some senators who were willing to listen to the Australian people. So, on the cost of living for the average family household—and that of course also transfers to the pensioner community in our midst—there was a real reduction.

In relation to pension increases, let us remember that Australian history did not start on 8 September 2013. We had a lot of legacy issues to deal with. When the Australian Labor Party kicked off the 2013 election campaign, they told the Australian people that there was an $18,000 million deficit. When the books were closed for that financial year, it had blown out to $48,000 million—a shortfall of $30,000 million in just one year. The Australian people expect us to take action in circumstances where there has been a $30,000 million shortfall in the budget in the circumstances which Labor went to the Australian people on and which we then inherited. There are legacy issues which we are seeking to fix; but, for the pensioner community, we got rid of the carbon tax, which has assisted them. (Time expired)