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

Mr Speaker, I am being quite careful not to accuse any particular person of lying but I am entitled to say that this government’s election was based on, amongst other things, this particular lie. Thousands of families will be worse off as a result of these means tests. Thousands of families will be less well off than they expected because of these secret means tests, these hidden means tests, which this government did not have the guts to come clean about before the election. They did not have the guts to be honest and open and up-front with the Australian people, and that is why so many people, as the polls are starting to show, are now asking the question, ‘Why did the government lie to us? Why did they not come open and out and up-front before the election?’ You know, the people of Australia are going to be further disappointed. I could not help noticing in the Sydney Morning Herald of 15 May a report that no less a person than the Treasurer had said that there were more plans in the pipeline to means-test other benefits. Why didn’t they say that before the election? If the Treasurer thought it was necessary to means-test benefits and he has more plans to means test benefits, why didn’t he come out and say this prior to the election?

There was a basic message that came out of the government budget to the people of Australia, a basic message contained in all of these secret means tests that were sprung on people in the budget. That basic message is, ‘Don’t bother to earn more than $150,000 as a family, as an individual, because as far as the Rudd government is concerned if you earn $150,000 you are part of the Rudd rich.’ That is what you are: $150,000 makes you one of Kevin Rudd’s new millionaires. Let me put this to the chamber: 10 per cent of the households of Sydney earn more than $150,000 a year and according to the Prime Minister they are the Rudd rich. They are the people who do not deserve any help from government. You actually need $150,000 a year to sustain a Sydney mortgage, but, as far as this government is concerned, at $150,000 a year you deserve as much help as Kerry Packer or Frank Lowy or Richard Pratt. It is just not right. The reason above all why it is just not right is that this mob opposite just were not honest about this with the Australian people before the election.

Let me briefly go through some of the particular elements of this legislation. The first major element of the legislation is the means test on the baby bonus. I want to say that means-testing the baby bonus is just plain wrong. Mothers do not get the baby bonus because they need it; mothers get the baby bonus because they deserve it. The idea that there should be two classes of mothers—class A mothers in households earning less than $150,000 a year and class B mothers in households earning more than $150,000 a year; class A mothers who have costs associated with having a baby and class B mothers who somehow do not have those costs or if they do they do not need any help—is just plain wrong. The real mistake in this misguided means test is the establishment of two classes of mother and two classes of child in this country. Especially, it is odd to see the baby bonus being taken away from mothers who deserve it through a means test that Labor says it will not enforce. If you carefully read the minister’s second reading speech, it is pretty clear that this is the first social security measure—or what the government thinks is a social security measure—that is to be based almost entirely on an honour system.

The second key measure in this bill is means-testing the family tax benefit, and that is wrong too, especially when you have not been honest and up-front about your intentions pre election. I should concede that the former opposition did—back in 2006, I think—move an amendment to a piece of government legislation suggesting that there should be a means test on the baby bonus at $250,000 a year. Having flagged an intention to put in place a misguided means test, they then ultimately made liars of themselves by not putting a means test on at $250,000, which they might have been able to say they flagged; they put it on at $150,000. Again, the big problem here is not so much the policy, misguided though it is, but the dishonesty of the political party that did not talk about this pre election.

The next significant item in this legislation is the proposal for voluntary family income management or voluntary welfare quarantining. I have to say that I think welfare quarantining is a very important initiative. Again, it is an initiative that was taken by the Howard government and was made possible in the Northern Territory and elsewhere because of pioneering legislation that the Howard government put in place last year. I think that the family income management measure that the government has in this bill is, in principle, a perfectly good thing. The problem is that the only places, I am advised, where this voluntary family income management will be possible this year and next are the Kimberleys of northern Western Australia and the Cannington region of outer metropolitan Perth. So here is a government which is introducing, with some fanfare, a measure as part of the budget and legislating for it today. This voluntary family income management that the Rudd government is giving the country will, I am sure, be toted around this country, announced and re-announced and sung from the rooftops by members opposite as a sign of the new leadership, but it will not actually make any difference for at least 18 months. My message to members opposite is: if you are a fair dinkum, do not just talk about these things, do not just pass legislation in the parliament but actually make these things happen for the benefit of the Australian people. Make them happen now or, if not now, at least in the next couple of months, not in a year or so.

Then we have the changes to eligibility for the Commonwealth seniors health card. Again, it was something that was never talked about pre election. Members opposite did not exactly go into the senior citizens centres of our country and say, ‘Oh, by the way, just in case you’re thinking of voting Labor, you ought to know that the seniors health care card is going to have a much tighter eligibility test applied.’ They did not say that, did they? There is the member for Maribyrnong over there with his head earnestly and diligently buried in his papers. How often did the member for Maribyrnong go into senior citizens centres and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to impose a tighter eligibility test on the Commonwealth seniors health care card’?

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