Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I see that the member for North Sydney does not agree with Chris Smith, which is unfortunate. Mr Smith said that Ms Elliot has ‘helped to make nursing home operators behave more in the interests of their clients’ and quoted a press release from Ms Elliott’s office which says that nursing home owners will not be allowed to increase their fees after the federal government’s latest stimulus package. That is a good thing. That is a minister doing what she is supposed to do—protecting the interests of people—and Chris Smith agrees with that.

But this is only the start of pension reform. It is a down payment. Long-term reforms to the budget next year are necessary to provide pensioners with a real sense of security, and that is why it has been endorsed—by every pensioner group in the country—as have the payments to families and the payments for first home buyers. Some 3.9 million children will benefit from a one-off payment of $1,000—payments for families who need it the most; families who are currently on family tax benefit A or families with children receiving the Youth Allowance, Abstudy or Veterans’ Children Education Scheme payments.

The doubling of the first home buyer grant to $14,000 and the tripling of it for first home buyers who buy newly constructed homes will also get first home buyers back into the market and help get the building industry back on its feet. It also has a multiplier effect, creating jobs in retail, manufacturing and elsewhere. All of this will help keep us afloat in rough weather.

In my own electorate the package will help 60,000 families, pensioners, carers and veterans. It will also help create new jobs, with an almost doubling of the job training places. On top of the interest rate cut last week it will help a lot of families keep their heads above water. The cut in interest rate means, for example, that someone who has a mortgage of $300,000—there are many of them in my electorate—will have an extra $164 a month in their pockets, wallets and purses rather than it going to the banks. That equates to an extra $2,000 a year.

There has been a lot of talk about bipartisanship in this place in the last few weeks, and I welcome the comments yesterday of the Leader of the Opposition in support of this package, but talk is cheap. It counts for nothing if it is not backed up by the actions of the party or by the words of the rest of the team. If you are committed to bipartisanship, support what we are trying to do in getting the budget through in the Senate. I am afraid I do not think the opposition will do that, because they are more interested in playing politics. The proof of that can be seen in the petrol excise debate that we had in this parliament only a few months ago. Remember when the former Leader of the Opposition introduced that policy and the current Leader of the Opposition then said that it was good politics but bad policy. When he became Leader of the Opposition he had a chance to change that, but he decided to keep it because he suddenly thought politics was a lot more important than policy. In these uncertain times the job of Prime Minister is to make decisions in the best interests of Australia and the Australian people, not to play politics over policy. That is the core problem here: just at a time when he became Leader of the Opposition, just at one of the most difficult times in global financial markets, he has decided to play politics over policy. They are still doing it in the Senate today.

But it gets worse. It is moments like these in a financial crisis when the opposition show their true colours. The Leader of the Opposition now wants to delay action on climate change. The member for Warringah, interestingly, says that, in these troubled economic times, we should keep Work Choices. This is what he said in his blog in the Daily Telegraph on Friday:

This is not the time for any action that could further hurt business confidence. Workplace relations changes to give unions more power; changes that make workers more expensive to employ; and new environmental imposts might need to be rethought.

That is what the member for Warringah said. Presumably it is endorsed by the Leader of the Opposition. We do not know. He might have an opportunity to get up and make a five-minute contribution to this debate. But I can tell you this: whether it is good times or bad, Work Choices is bad policy and, unless the opposition come in here in a few weeks and vote that legislation out of town, we will know once and for all that they are still the party of Work Choices. The challenge today for the next speaker or anyone who cares to take the microphone in the next few weeks is to disown this statement from the member for Warringah, say that Work Choices is bad policy and get rid of it once and for all.

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