Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Goldstein referred to unemployment. I tell you what the unemployment rate is for people with disabilities in Australia—although I hesitate to guess that, when you are a person with disabilities, the coalition might not know how low your unemployment rate is—and what the participation rate is. It is a sad 39 per cent, well below the rate in OECD countries. So, when it comes to protecting the vulnerable, the opposition are in trouble trying to claim that mantle.

We see that our individual tax burdens, compared to OECD standards, are relatively high. Take 2004-05. If you have a look at who was paying half of the income tax of $101.6 billion, which the tax bandits of the coalition were taking to feather their electoral promises, you will see that half of the income tax burden was being paid by people who earned less than $660. What a fantastic year that was! They get to pay half of the income tax burden of Australia, then they get Work Choices in their stockings at Christmas—a truly frightening sort of Stephen King political outcome!  What we see is that low income—

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