Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Despite what the Minister for Housing has shared with us this afternoon, I think that for the first time in living memory Australia has a government that is not working in the interests of all Australians. The minister has indicated this afternoon the pressures and the difficulties that working Australians, families and pensioners are facing. She talks about the tough decisions that this government has taken, but I think that all we have seen have been more and more reviews. We have seen no tough decisions, no support for those Australians doing it tough—particularly our senior Australians, who we know are really doing it tough.

The Rudd government, despite what the Minister for Housing has said this afternoon, has talked down the Australian economy. We know that business confidence is at record low levels. Today many of our senior Australians are feeling anxious and they are feeling insecure, and this is a new situation for many of those senior Australians who, under our government—the previous Howard government—felt secure.

It is the Rudd government which has created this sense of insecurity that all our older Australians and, indeed, many of our working Australian families are feeling today. As I travel around Australia—and I do have a particular interest in older Australians—they tell me that this feeling of insecurity is something they have not experienced in a decade or more. Under the previous government, this country enjoyed strong—

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