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

I am grateful for the opportunity that the opposition has given me to talk about the significant reform agenda that the government has. But I am a little surprised at the line of argument that the member for Warringah has brought to this topic because I for one was expecting him to put forward some reform agenda. What we actually had from him this afternoon when he finished was just a personal rant against the Prime Minister—a litany of personal abuse, which I was surprised about given the topic of the matter of public importance. More significant, I suppose, was the way in which the member for Warringah focused entirely on the past. He is not at all concerned about an agenda for the future. He defended Work Choices. He defended Peter Reith, no less, and John Howard and looked entirely to the past for things that he might justify. He looked entirely to the past, to Peter Reith and John Howard, for the ideas that he seems to support.

The other thing I thought, when I read the matter of public importance, was that maybe he was going to come in here and defend his own book but it seems he wants to defend some comments that were made by others at the launch of another book. Another possibility I thought of was that he might be coming in here to put forward his leadership credentials, but I certainly do not think he has demonstrated any of those today unless he thinks leadership is just about looking to the past and being full of personal abuse. I am not quite sure why their tactics committee would let him come here today and present a litany of what he might consider to be achievements by Reith and Howard and then just attack the current Prime Minister.

By contrast, I want to take this opportunity to go through in some detail the vigorous reform agenda that we are putting in place. I find it extraordinary that anyone would question the cracking pace of reform that our Prime Minister sets. I will limit my remarks to the areas in my own portfolio, where there is significant reform both already achieved and underway, but right across the government there is an extraordinary pace of reform. If there is one thing the Labor government is proud of, it is the reform that has introduced a fair system of workplace relations, a fair system of workplace relations that has got rid of Work Choices.

One of the things that have been so important to the Labor government, something I talked about in question time today, is the most significant reform to the pension system that has been delivered in the 100-year life of the age pension. From 20 September this year we are going to see 3.3 million pensioners receive an increase to their pension. These increases are long overdue and not a reform ever pursued by the previous government. Delivered within our short time in office, these pension reforms are going to mean a real and sustainable difference to age pensioners, carers, disability support pensioners, veterans—many, many people who have been waiting a long time for this pension rise.

We had to make some very tough decisions in coming to these increases and one of them was to increase the age pension age. The member for Warringah announced in his book—not that he mentioned it in the MPI debate today—that, even though he did not mention it all of the time that he was a minister in the previous government, he now thinks we should increase the age pension age more quickly and it should go up to a higher age. We of course will take a more considered approach to what was a difficult decision.

Another major reform that this government will deliver, which once again the previous government refused to do the whole time they were in office, is the first paid parental leave scheme in this country. The scheme will make sure that we do two things: encourage the participation of women in the workforce and, most importantly, give babies the best start in life. It is certainly going to be a very significant win for parents and babies and also an important win for the workforce. This is another item that has made it into the member for Warringah’s book. He apparently used to be opposed to paid parental leave, but somehow he has had a transformation. Now that he has the solitude of the opposition, he seems to embrace this idea—an idea that he was opposed to in government.

Another major area of reform for this government has been in the area of housing. My colleague the Minister for Housing, Minister Plibersek, is doing an outstanding job implementing a range of reforms, whether it is the encouragement of home ownership with the first home owners boost or the introduction of the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which is all about providing incentives to those who are building affordable rental housing. For the first time, we have seen real effort to address homelessness. It is an effort led by the Prime Minister and strongly supported by the Minister for Housing, making sure that we provide not only specialist housing for the homeless but all those specialist support services as well. We are providing the single largest investment in social housing ever made by an Australian government. Of course, when those opposite were in government they did not even have a housing minister, let alone make any of the reforms that this government has put in place.

Turning to the very important and long-neglected area of support for people with disabilities and the people who care for them, we are delivering increases in the pension to people with disabilities and to carers. We are delivering the highest ever level of indexation in the new National Disability Agreement. This is an area where we know we have a lot more to do, but with the states and territories we are pursuing a number of reforms to deliver new ways of making individualised care packages available to people and providing more supported accommodation to give peace of mind to older carers in particular. We on this side of the House are all very aware of the enthusiasm that Parliamentary Secretary Shorten has brought to this task. It was this government that ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and we are also improving building access standards. I have mentioned the improvements that we have made to the carer payment, and we introduced a permanent carer supplement—unlike the previous government, where carers had to depend on the whims of the Prime Minister. We have changed the eligibility criteria and assessment processes for carer payment (child).

One of the most significant reforms—yes, for a small group of people—is for a group of people who are caring for children with profound disabilities. This is not a reform that was delivered by the previous government. It is a reform that was delivered by this government after less than two years in office. There are going to be around 19,000 carers of profoundly disabled children under the age of 16 who are going to benefit from these new arrangements. It has been this government that, for the first time, has delivered a national child protection framework. It was never delivered by the previous government, but this government is about working with the states and territories and working with the non-government sector to do everything we can to protect our children. We have an agreement with the states and territories to develop national standards for out-of-home care. Just this week I announced new protocols to allow the sharing of information between Medicare and state and territory child protection authorities. We already have that operating between Centrelink and the state and territory child protection authorities. It was never delivered by those opposite.

When it comes to Indigenous reform, we have a very ambitious program. We have, of course, reframed the public debate. We acknowledged and apologised for the injustices of the past.

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