Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

which is real money and goes into people’s bank accounts and helps them with their bills. The honourable member for Sydney, if she had had her way, would have abolished that payment. That was Labor’s policy at the last election. There is no point shaking your head, Member for Sydney; it was your policy at the last election and if you had been elected Labor would have taken that payment away. In fact, if Labor had had their way, after the last election they would have actually increased tax for single-income families and made them worse off.

So one thing I can say is this: not only has the family tax benefit been of great assistance to families and helped them with their bills but, if it had been left to Labor, families would be worse off today. The other thing I can say is this: nothing helps families like getting a member of a family in a job. If a family does not have a job then a family does not have a stake in the real economy. I think, when you look back and you see that over 200,000 new jobs have been created in the last year, when you look at the fact that real wages have increased by about 20 per cent, you would say to yourself, ‘This has given hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in families in Australia the opportunity to improve their position.’ That is what the coalition has been about: improving benefits to families and giving families a stake in this great country.

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