Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

He said that they supported it. The disability pension rise needed now goes to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition did not provide any provision at all for the disability pension in his statement last week. I suggest the Leader of the Opposition actually reads the statement. Furthermore, there is a statement by Queensland Advocacy Inc. which deals with another group which were not the beneficiaries of the proposal put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. Then there are statements by Family Advocacy, the National Council on Intellectual Disability and the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia and there is a statement from Carers Australia entitled ‘What about the hardest working families of all?’ On top of that, we have a statement from the Brotherhood of St Laurence entitled ‘Increases to income support need to be fair for all’.

I table each of those statements from those various community organisations. The reason I do so is to go back to the core point: because the member for Bradfield is challenged on his leadership, he has changed the position put forward by the member for Wentworth only a few months ago on the age pension. He changed it last week in a real hurry and, as a consequence, missed out 2.2 million carers, recipients of the disability support pension, widows and others. Labor intend to undertake this program of reform thoroughly. We have commenced that program of reform and we intend to prosecute it fully, those opposite having had 12 years to deal with this problem. Their inattention to it for 12 years demonstrates how much they really cared about this, which was not at all.

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