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

I'll just take up where I left off. We have a Prime Minister who has not got a clue what it's like for ordinary working families in this country to battle to pay their rent, pay their mortgage, make sure they've got power coming to the house, make sure their kids can get school shoes to go to school. He would not have a clue, and if he had a clue then he would not be going down the track of continuing what was a rort by John Howard and by the weakest, worst Treasurer we've ever had in this country in Peter Costello—a Treasurer that was too weak to stand up to a Prime Minister that wanted to throw money out to the richest in the country just to make sure he got their vote at the election.

This is a government that is following in the footsteps of the Howard government by trying to maintain rorts to the rich and powerful in this country at the expense of working families. Any day, I'll look after the ordinary working-class people in this country against those that are sitting in their mansions on the shores of Sydney Harbour, picking up refunds for dividend imputation that they never paid any tax on. Where is the sense in that? Commentators around the country have got you guys well and truly picked on this. This is just an absolute rort that you are engaging in. There is absolutely no economic sense at all in what you are doing. You claim to be the party of economic responsibility, the grown-up party. Well, we've seen the grown-up party in action—an absolute rabble of a party, an absolute rabble of a government that is absolutely unconcerned about the key issues that affect ordinary working people. And that's why Senator Fierravanti-Wells had to come in here, humiliate herself and admit that she'd got it wrong and had misled us again.

This is a government that will mislead the public every chance it gets, because it doesn't care about the key issues that are required for workers to actually feed their families, get their kids to school and pay for their transport to get to work. The problems working families have got do not matter; all you lot want to do is keep the rorts that John Howard put in place for the rich and powerful. You are an absolute disgrace, and Senator Fierravanti-Wells should well look after her position in future. (Time expired)