Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The overall point that I am trying to make here is that frustration, together with a will to comply with the buzzword ‘decisive’, has led this government to its repeated examples of reckless haste. The Prime Minister and his advisers even saw fit to introduce these measures without getting advice from the Treasury.

I will now return to the specifics of this economic stimulus package of $10.4 billion. Of course, this represents more than half the surplus spent in one-off payments. Let me turn to what is in it for the pensioners. In the electorate of Cowan there are over 10,700 age pensioners and about 3,500 disability support pensioners. I know that the $1,400 for single recipients and the $2,100 for couples will be very useful in the home budgets. Yet I note with incredulity that the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs stood up yesterday in this place and spoke about how inclusive the $4.8 billion, which applies to pensioners, was of different pensioner and other categories. I found it incredible because before this economic stimulus package was announced the government was sticking to the line that no pensioner was going to get anything more until the next budget. It would seem that memories are very short in the ministerial wing. Yet it is good that the sustained pressure provided by the coalition has been successful, although what was really needed was an increase in the base rate of the pensions. This, however, is not part of this package. What was needed was a longer term solution, and I look forward to that occurring as soon as possible for the benefit of the pensioners in Cowan and in the rest of Australia. The base rate of the pension must be increased, and this is coalition policy.

With regard to dependent children, there will be $1,000 for those families on family tax benefit part A. I am sure that families will appreciate those one-off payments, yet it is again evidence of the short-term memory of the Treasurer, who in 2004 described lump sums as ‘irresponsible’ and ‘bad social policy’. Also, just last year, the now Minister for Housing said that the baby bonus should be paid fortnightly to take out the ‘jackpot effect’. The Treasurer also viewed such one-off payments as ‘not real money’. This is just another example of blatant hypocrisy. Perhaps it does validate the comments by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts last year, when he said, ‘Once we get in we’ll change it all.’ What the Labor Party did not change, however, was their policy on hypocrisy.

Yet the fact remains that this appropriation of money will go through for 8 December. $4.8 billion will go to pensioners and $3.8 billion to families. I am certain that those eligible to receive these one-off payments will appreciate them and I reiterate that it is my hope that the money will be appropriately spent for the maximum benefit of the recipients and of this country.

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