Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I just do not know. Two weeks ago he was campaigning against any changes to the baby bonus. Yesterday he repeatedly refused to answer whether or not he supported the baby bonus changes. This morning, he called a doorstop and said, ‘We don’t support means testing as a policy but we are not going to block the budget. We do not support means testing of these things.’ That is what he said this morning, so I thought I would go back and have a look at previous comments about means testing by the current Leader of the Opposition. In the North Shore Times on 30 May 2001—I know you will be surprised!—he said the exact opposite. What he said back then was:

Surely it is time now to think more of others and less of ourselves. In this lies the best interests of our nation.

If only he remembered writing this.

Whether that means supporting targeted funding in a federal budget, or supporting a charitable youth program in our own area, it is time to stand up and be counted.

Well, it certainly is time to stand up and be counted, and this Leader of the Opposition has a little bit more time to stand up and be counted. How on earth could he say that we should stand up and be counted when he takes so many different points of view that an Olympic gymnast would be proud? This is yet another about-face from this Leader of the Opposition, who has no idea at all what he stands for.

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