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

I'm pleased to be able to contribute to this matter of public importance. Every now and again, it would be really nice if the Greens would actually come together with the Labor Party and attack the reality of this coalition government, who are about ensuring more and more inequality. It would be really good if you could once in a while actually focus on the Liberal and National parties for the damage that they are doing, instead of roping us in—the Labor Party—as being exactly the same as the Liberal Party. The Greens know that's not the case. But the Greens have a view that the enemy, to them, is the Labor Party. I've got a lot of respect for Senator Siewert. I looked at this resolution where she says that the only solution the Liberal and Labor parties have to inequality and wage stagnation comes straight from the neoliberal handbook—like ever-increasing company tax cuts and free trade deals that hurt workers.

I wasn't surprised that Senator Siewert didn't go there. She actually dealt with issues of inequality. I really can't understand why the Greens, at every chance they get, attack the Labor Party, who are in there arguing for penalty rates to be given back, who are arguing to ensure we have a decent health system and a decent education system and who are making sure big business pay their proper amount of tax.

But let's have a look at the Greens' record over a period of time. They did a dodgy deal with the Liberal Party to give Tony Abbott of all people—former Prime Minister Abbott—a massive victory in voting down the CPRS. We could have had 10 years of dealing with carbon pollution in this country if not for the purity and the inability of the Greens to actually focus on a long-term position, rather than take cheap shots at the Labor Party. We could have been making a big difference right now. The Greens teamed up with the Liberal Party to do a backdoor deal to cut the pensions of 370,000 Australians. That did a lot for poverty alleviation in the country! They teamed up with the Liberals to water down the tax transparency bill. Imagine the Greens teaming up with the Liberals to make how tax is paid in this country less transparent!

I had a long working relationship with former senator Lee Rhiannon. What happened when former senator Lee Rhiannon stood up for public schools? She was expelled from the Greens' party room. That was a great service to inequality in this country! That was fantastic! And then you look at Senator Peter Whish-Wilson. One of the big issues facing workers now is cuts to penalty rates, and Senator Peter Whish-Wilson believed that the Greens could double their vote by courting small business. And he backed a 'bigger national discussion' about weekend penalty rates, suggesting they are outdated. Then he said:

I think it's just a white Anglo-Saxon cultural thing that we've inherited.

Penalty rates, to just remind the Greens, put food on the table of working families in this country. Penalty rates were absolutely essential for me as a blue-collar worker. I could never have survived without penalty rates when I first came to this country. I needed penalty rates to take my kids on holiday every now and again. I didn't go on holiday every year—I couldn't afford it—but my penalty rates gave me an opportunity to take my two kids on a holiday now and again. My penalty rates made sure I could pay my mortgage. My penalty rates made sure I could pay my rent when I didn't own a house. And yet Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson wanted a 'bigger national discussion' about penalty rates, saying they were an 'Anglo-Saxon cultural thing that we'd inherited'. No. Let me tell the Greens that penalty rates were actually about putting food on the table of working-class Australians.

I'm not surprised that some of the Greens have got no idea about penalty rates, never having had to actually depend on them and representing some of the richest Australians in the country. That's fine; I don't have a problem with that. But don't attack working-class people because you don't understand how working-class people survive in this country.

Instead of drafting resolutions like this, why don't you come to the Labor Party and say: 'We want to do something about neoliberalism. We want to do something about ensuring that inequality is dealt with in this country'? Instead of pulling stunts like this attacking the Labor Party, when we've got a rabble of a government in this country that day in, day out demonstrate how out of touch they are, why don't you attack the Liberal-National Party now and again instead of constantly tying Labor in with the Liberals and the Nationals? It's an absolute joke. We know why it is. It's because the Greens see Labor as their competitors. The Greens see Labor as their opponents. They don't see the Liberal-National Party as the people who are destroying decent wages and conditions in this country. They don't target the Liberal-National Party on these issues. They attack Labor. It's an absolute nonsense.

Let me just turn to Senator McGrath's contribution and this idea that the best thing for people in this country is tax cuts and free trade agreements. Maybe we'll hear from the Greens' contributors on this when they have an opportunity. Give us a break. 'Free trade agreements and tax cuts will resolve poverty in this country' is the argument you hear all the time from across the chamber—the argument that 'the best form of welfare is a job'. There are not enough jobs in this country to give a job to everyone who needs a job. That's the reality. You've only got to look at some of the National Party seats in this country to see the poverty there. Why people continually vote for the National Party has got me beat, when the National Party attack their social security payments, attack pensions, attack welfare, attack provisions for women who find themselves in domestic violence situations and have nowhere to go, and take $44 million a year out of support for temporary accommodation for women in crisis.

How about attacking those over there instead of drafting a stupid resolution like this? You could have easily come to us and we could have been on a unity ticket on the issue of inequality. Labor has never had a better raft of policies across the board to deal with inequality. I'm proud to be a member of the Labor Party.