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

I would like to join my colleague the member for North Sydney in acknowledging the good work of the parliamentary staff. I also want to acknowledge the good work of the member for North Sydney in choosing such a good moment to provide that acknowledgement. The Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (2008 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2008 is important because it does, as the minister pointed out in introducing it, involve $55 billion worth of support for families. The point that the minister completely failed to make was that that $55 billion worth of support for families would have been given by the Howard government. In fact, it would have been an even bigger package of support for families if the Howard government had still been here because we would not have been imposing a means test on the baby bonus, on the family tax benefit part B and on the childcare benefit.

Let me make it absolutely crystal clear to the House and to the listening voters of this country that the policy and the money in this legislation essentially came from the Howard government. The tax cuts were the Howard government’s tax cuts and the surplus is the Howard government surplus, and this is a government which is boasting about credentials which it does not actually have. It is a government which is boasting about credentials which belong to someone else. But it is worse than that. Not only is this government dishonestly claiming credentials to which it is not entitled but it dishonestly went to the election giving one impression while planning to do something quite different. Pre election, the government gave people the good news but it did not give them the fine print. It is fundamentally dishonest to give the voters good news before the election and save up the bad news for after the election, but that is precisely what this government has done. I ask members opposite how many of them put out press releases during the campaign telling their voters honestly that the baby bonus was going to be means-tested. How many members opposite put out press releases during the campaign owning up to their voters that there would be a means test on the family tax benefit part B? How many of them visited childcare centres during the election and said, ‘By the way, there is going to be a means test on the childcare benefit if we get elected’? I tell you what, none of them did, because they were interested in votes and what they were doing was telling people the good news and effectively lying about the bad news. This is the fundamental dishonesty behind this bill.

Let me give one example in case anyone might doubt what I am saying. I have here a message from ALP campaign information dated Thursday, 22 November 2007, at four o’clock in the afternoon. This is a message which I am sure went out to thousands and thousands of people during the campaign. To quote ALP campaign information:

We have no plans to make any other changes to the way the Baby Bonus is structured, either in terms of eligibility or payment methods.

That was just a lie; it was just an outright lie.

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