Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I am speaking about the bill and—as you said, Deputy President—I am putting it in the context of a government that is so out of touch and so dysfunctional. I know that this is a veiled attempt from those on the other side to give Mr Turnbull some cover. As I said in my speech last night, I am ashamed to sit in this chamber with a government that has attacked some of the most vulnerable people in the community—the people who this government has been hurting most in this country over the last summer period, with the dysfunction of the Centrelink robo-debt recovery crisis and the fact that this government is putting ordinary, everyday Australians who need a helping hand into the hands of debt collectors.

Senator Smith interjecting—

Then they came in here last night—and now we have them interjecting—trying to say that we support the rorting of Centrelink. There is nothing further from the truth, and that is such an insult to everyone in this chamber. There is not an Australian—except those who may be caught rorting—who does not believe that only those people who deserve to get Centrelink payments should have access to them. But, no, they continued to send out letters to innocent Australians—and we know, and the government are now very much aware, that 40 per cent of those letters were inaccurate. I spoke last night about the Tasmanians who have been caught up in this dysfunctional government's shambolic attempt to rein back money from those people who can least afford it. Once your name is on the debt collectors' database, it is extremely difficult to have it removed.