Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I know that the members of the Queensland Liberal-National Party are upset at the mention of Mal Brough’s name. When Mal Brough took the position to the cabinet, asking for an increase in pensions, they chose not to do anything when they were in a position to do something about it. They rejected the position Mal Brough put forward to the cabinet just last year.

But, of course, the opposition have floundered around looking for an issue. There is no real concern for pensioners, because, if they were really concerned about pensioners, they would not be putting forward a bill which ignored two million pensioners—married pensioners, carers, people with a disability—including half a million single carers and disability pensioners living on the same $281 a week as single age pensioners. The $30 a week payment is not even indexed, so its value will erode over time—another mean and tricky Liberal policy.

There is no mechanism in the bill to ensure that increased payments are not taken up by increased rents, and that is because they have not taken this issue seriously. In the Senate yesterday, they could not even get a second speaker on this bill. The shadow minister responsible for this portfolio cannot be bothered to be in the chamber for this debate. They have a shadow minister who regards the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs portfolio as not being the main game. He is not interested in the portfolio that he has been given. I am sure there are a few disappointed people opposite who would not have minded being given that portfolio.

This is all about playing politics. Indeed, when the member for Bradfield led the opposition, he stated that he was going to introduce the bill into the House. In a press release on 10 September 2008, he stated:

I will move to introduce legislation when parliament sits next week to give Mr Rudd the opportunity to deliver an extra $30 a week to around 860,000 Australians …

He said he would do that, but of course he did not because you cannot submit to the House private members’ bills which have an impact on revenue. That is why it was rejected when the opposition attempted to move this bill in the House. What this comes down to is the born-to-rule mentality that those opposite have. They refuse to accept that they are not the executive government of the day. When they were the executive government, they chose to do nothing. Now they are the opposition, they choose to engage in politics, not in policy development.

The opposition would have been given the same advice that the bill was unconstitutional, that it was contrary to House of Representatives Practice, that it was contrary to standing orders. But they say that that just does not matter. They say we should just forget about that and forget about the Australian Constitution. Unfortunately for the opposition, they did get some good advice from Laurie Oakes—often a source of good advice. In a question to the member for North Sydney, Laurie Oakes stated:

… you can’t increase the pension by $30 a week without appropriating moneys and Section 56 of the Constitution says that you require a message from the Governor-General, and the Governor-General acts on the advice of ministers. Parliamentary Standing Orders say that a private member cannot introduce a bill to appropriate moneys, so Dr Nelson was obviously quite ignorant of this when he made that proposal last week, wasn’t he?

The Manager of Opposition Business said:

No, that’s not right, Laurie.

You have the Manager of Opposition Business, the person who is responsible for standing orders and House of Representatives Practice in this House, being like all those opposite—completely ignorant about the basic processes that occur in this parliament. That is why the promised bill never appeared. They said it would appear but, of course, they were more worried about knocking off the member for Bradfield than they were worried about pensioners. That was their priority on the day that they said—they gave a commitment—that they would be introducing legislation about pensioners. Their sole concern was knocking over the member for Bradfield so that people such as the member for Sturt and others could climb over Dr Nelson and get a few places further up the front bench as one of the 32 gondoliers in the merchant of Venice’s team that sits opposite the government in the chamber at this stage.

You cannot actually produce a bill that has $1.45 billion a year in it, that is in breach of the Constitution, that is in breach of standing orders and that is in breach of House of Representatives Practice, and hope that nobody notices. But it does say something about the psychology of where they are at. We have seen a number of therapy sessions conducted—one on a Friday and one the first sitting night, until the very early hours of the morning. No political party that sees itself as a future government would try this on. No serious political party that is concerned with executive government would simply argue that the Constitution and the processes of this House do not matter. This is a sign from them that they are more interested in fighting over the spoils of opposition—which is the context in which this bill arose—than they are in fighting seriously to get back on the treasury bench so that they can put in place whatever policy they like as the government.

It is a fact that I, as a member of the opposition, put forward a number of private members’ bills. One of those was the Superannuation (Entitlements of same sex couples) Bill—which is now government policy, I am pleased to say, thanks to the Attorney-General and, I would hope, with some bipartisan support from those across the chamber. At the time when I introduced that bill, it was contentious. It had to specifically exclude Commonwealth public servants. Why was that the case? It was not because I thought Commonwealth public servants should continue to be discriminated against but because I was given advice that a private member, through a private member’s bill, could not seek to appropriate funds and that that was the role of ministers. Hence the bill was framed in that way. It is unfortunate that nothing happened throughout the years, right up to 2007, but now—thanks to the Attorney-General and the Rudd government’s commitment—we are resolving the issue of discrimination against same-sex couples. I acknowledge that there are many opposite who also support that position and who supported it when they were in government, but they could not get it past those narrow-minded people in their party room who were prepared to play politics with people’s lives.

Last week they had to amend their own bill—before it had even been discussed or talked about by anyone—to add a group. They were amending their own bill before it had even gone to the House—quite extraordinary. This government is actually acting. The fact is that this very fortnight all pensioners will receive the third quarterly instalment of the utilities allowance of $128 to help with their bills. Why is it $128 rather than $125, which is a quarter of $500? It is because it is subject to indexation, and the indexation is already kicking in. They have got a bill before the House in which they have forgotten about indexation, because it is a sloppy, badly and hastily-put-together bill. This is not real work; this is meaningless politics from those opposite. Of course, we extended the utilities allowance—unlike ever before—to carers payments and the disability support pension. But the opposition continue to play low-rent politics with this.

It is clear that the opposition gave themselves up earlier today. They did not actually move anything today. People have got to understand that. They just tried to suspend standing orders. They did not move their bill. They did not seek leave. They sought to suspend standing orders.

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