Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

That’s right! He was at the Press Club yesterday. He obviously has no idea what his coalition colleagues are doing in the Senate. We understand that there are a few other colleagues who do not agree with these payments. So it is some leadership that he is showing—getting out there and demonstrating what on earth it is that the opposition actually thinks about these payments.

They do have a shadow minister over there who, you might have thought, might have defended the interests of pensioners and families. Unfortunately, the member for Warringah thinks that the job he has got is beneath him. When the latest Leader of the Opposition was actually elected by those opposite, the member for Warringah went out into the media and said that he wanted a change of portfolio because he did not think that this portfolio was the main game. That is what he is saying to pensioners and to families. Last night, in yet another insult to Australian families and pensioners, the member for Warringah told Laurie Oakes on Channel 9 that he had ‘nothing better to do than turn up for media interviews’. Nothing better to do! He cannot get out there and talk to pensioners and families and stand up for their interests. The member for Warringah has no interest in developing policy, as the Acting Prime Minister—

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