Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

I think any fair-minded Australian listening to the Prime Minister’s contribution to this censure debate would come to the sad conclusion that this government is suffering from compassion fatigue after just three months in office. Anyone who listened to the contribution of the Prime Minister, who now turns his back on the opposition—and on the carers of Australia, for whom the opposition is speaking—would conclude that, as far as this Prime Minister is concerned, it is all about the economy; it is not about people.

The Prime Minister and members opposite said that they have inherited a difficult situation. What is so difficult about a $20 billion-plus surplus? They have inherited a $20 billion-plus surplus and they will not commit to give any of it to the carers and pensioners of Australia by way of these lump sum payments. Shame on you, Prime Minister, shame on you, minister for families, and shame on you, Deputy Prime Minister, for abandoning and dumping the most vulnerable people in our society in this way. Let us make it absolutely crystal clear, to a Prime Minister and a minister who do not know, exactly what their policy is. This was stated in the Sydney Morning Herald last Friday:

The Federal Government faces criticism from carer groups after it decided not to match a $1600 bonus payment made to carers by the Howard government in recent years.

Listen to this, Prime Minister, and listen to this, minister for families:

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Families, Jenny Macklin, confirmed the decision last night, saying it was part of the Government’s plan to cut spending.

So dumping the carers lump sum payment and dumping the pensioners lump sum payment is ‘part of the government’s plan to cut spending’. This is about the bonus payment that the Howard government has paid for the last four years. Will it or will it not be paid this year?

Instead of guaranteeing that it will be paid, this Prime Minister is now trying to cook up some kind of a fix with the Leader of the House. I tell you what, Prime Minister: if you want to get out of this mess do not consult the Leader of the House, the author of the manic Fridays. This Prime Minister has refused to give a guarantee that the bonus payment will be made, saying instead that people will not be worse off. He said that this meant that they could all relax and be reassured. In other words, what he tried to do in response to the censure debate today was to give the guarantee that he had refused to give in question time through a series of tortuous evasions and circumlocutions and equivocations.

I will tell you what a guarantee would be. A guarantee would be a letter signed by the Prime Minister of this country saying to the carers and the pensioners of Australia: ‘Your bonus payments and your lump sum payments are safe and will be paid in this budget because the surplus will be bigger than ever, our economy is better than ever and you deserve a dividend this year from economic growth, as you have had in the last four years from the Howard government.’ Have the guts to sign a guarantee and then people will give you credit for at least having the heart to accept that you and your government have made a mistake over the last four or five years.

The cardboard Kev that appeared in this parliament on the last sitting Friday has more heart than this Prime Minister has shown in the course of question time and the censure debate today. Let us examine exactly what the Prime Minister has said. I quote from an AAP report yesterday:

Mr Rudd said Families and Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin was investigating how the system could be improved, saying one-off payments and bonuses were an inadequate way to deal with welfare on a long-term basis.

So there was the Prime Minister, who now says that the one-off lump sum payment and bonus is guaranteed for this budget, saying yesterday that it was inadequate. He went on to say yesterday:

The challenge that Jenny Macklin and others have been wrestling with is how do we put all this on to a more secure, predictable basis for carers and pensioners into the long-term future, rather than having to deal simply with a series of one-offs …

The carers and the pensioners of this country can be trusted with money. They can be trusted to know what to do with $1,600 or $500, and that is what they would prefer, as has been made abundantly clear over the last few days. But what we had in question time today was a Prime Minister who not only would not guarantee the lump sum payment but would not guarantee any alternative way of ensuring that these vulnerable people would not be worse off. He comes in here and he piously says to this chamber, ‘They will not be worse off by one dollar,’ but he refuses to describe a mechanism to ensure that that will be the case.

I say to the carers and the pensioners of Australia: these are weasel words that we have seen from this Prime Minister. You cannot trust this Prime Minister, and these bonuses will not be paid until we have a guarantee in writing, signed by this man, that they will be paid. Do you know what we have seen today? We have seen the Prime Minister reverting to type. Last year we saw caring Kevin, we saw pious Kevin, and we saw statesman Kevin.

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