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

I am so pleased that the Leader of the Nationals is at the table. It is extraordinary that, in this week when paid parental leave finally went through the parliament, we have no sharper or clearer example of the difference between the government and those opposite. We are the government who are delivering for families. For 12 years the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Nationals had the chance to deliver a paid parental leave scheme. We know that the Leader of the Opposition spent the whole time campaigning against it. He said that paid parental leave would only ever happen over his dead body. Well, thanks to this government, that wait is over and it is going to be low-income women who are the big winners as a result of the government’s paid parental leave scheme. The Leader of the Nationals would be pleased to know that that is especially going to be low-income women in regional areas. Just walk down the street of any country town. Think of the hairdressing shop, the food store, all the places where women are working as cashiers, food attendants. These are the women who are, at the moment, least likely to have paid parental leave and many of them would be part-time or casual workers working in a local small business. They are now going to get paid parental leave for the first time.

We know that the Leader of the Opposition does have one policy on paid parental leave, but we also know that he did not talk to his Nationals colleagues, including the Leader of the Nationals, before he made this announcement. We remember in February this year the Leader of the Opposition went out and said that there would be no new taxes. That is what the Leader of the Opposition said in February. Then along he came in March and announced that there would be a new tax on business of 1.7 per cent that will apparently pay for what can only be described as a sham paid parental leave scheme from this Leader of the Opposition. This new tax on business from the Leader of the Opposition, who a month earlier said there would be no new taxes on business, will drive up grocery prices for families. The Leader of the Nationals knows it is an unfair scheme that the Leader of the Opposition has dreamt up because it is going to see high-income earners in the city getting as much as $75,000 when they have a baby and much, much less for those low-income women in regional towns who earn a lot less. The Leader of the Nationals made this very clear on the radio last week when he owned up to the fact that he has told the Leader of the Opposition that he has some concerns about the size of the paid parental leave scheme. Plainly the Leader of the Nationals is not happy about the Leader of the Opposition’s approach.

We have heard a bit from the Leader of the Opposition today, preaching to us about broken promises. I have to say, coming from this Leader of the Opposition, it really is beyond belief. It is extraordinary. We all know that he has form on this matter. He had form in government, and now he also has form in opposition. I have just outlined the one on no new taxes and now he is up there proposing a new tax. All of us remember that when he was in government he said that he had a rock solid, ironclad guarantee that had to do with the Medicare safety net. Immediately after the 2004 election he broke that commitment. You would have to say that this Leader of the Opposition’s commitments in government and in opposition really only have the substance of fairy dust.

It was summarised most accurately by the Leader of the Opposition himself on The 7.30 Report. I do not think any of us will ever forget the memorable interview with Kerry O’Brien when the Leader of the Opposition said:

I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

One thing that families know as a result of these comments from the Leader of the Opposition is they cannot trust anything that Mr Abbott says.

The Leader of the Opposition mentioned the baby bonus in his remarks. I want to draw families’ attention to the comments that he has made about the baby bonus, the commitments that the Leader of the Opposition has made in opposition about the baby bonus. This is a man who says one thing and then walks away and does another. If you look at the statements he has made, most recently the Leader of the Opposition has said on ABC Radio—this was in May, so not that long ago—that he would not be removing the baby bonus means test. He said:

Um, that’s not a commitment that I can make at this time.

Let us go back just a few months. This comment that he made in May follows repeated commitments that this Leader of the Opposition made to remove the means test on the baby bonus. This is him in the Sydney Morning Herald, quoted in December last year. He said:

Whacking the means test on was dead wrong. I’d like to see that means test come off.

He said it again in May this year, just before he went on the radio. He said this in response to a question from a journalist, who asked:

You believe the baby bonus should stay untouched?

Mr Abbott said:

I do, and it shouldn’t have been means tested the way the Government has.

It must have been one of those commitments he made in the heat of the moment; it must have been a heat-of-the-moment discussion because just a few weeks later we have had him ruling it out.

The shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, has ruled out another one of the commitments that Mr Abbott tried to make. He tried to double the baby bonus, and I gather the Leader of the National Party wants to do that as well. Mr Abbott apparently went into shadow cabinet trying to get an agreement to double the baby bonus. He could not quite say yes or no when he was on radio. He said he could not rule things out and could not rule things in, so the shadow Treasurer had to go on the television and make it plain. I make it clear to the Leader of the Nationals that this is the current position of the opposition. The shadow Treasurer said, ‘No, we can’t take that latest idea into this election.’ How would families ever be able to believe anything that this opposition says?

I want to run through the other major achievements that this government has delivered for families. We have delivered Australia’s first Paid Parental Leave scheme. One of the most important achievements of this government was keeping Australians in jobs, because nothing is more important to a family than knowing that mum or dad or both are in a job and that they can therefore put food on the table for their families. It was this government that got rid of Work Choices to make sure that families have decent working conditions, and all of this we did in the face of the global financial crisis. This government is delivering tax cuts to all taxpayers, so important to families. This will include a doubling of the low-income tax offset. In 2010-11, a person earning $50,000 will pay $1,750 less tax than they did in 2007-08. It is this government that has delivered an increase in the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent to make sure that child care is more affordable for parents. That is delivered—it is in the pockets of parents—and we made sure that we pay the childcare rebate more frequently. It is this government that has delivered the Medicare Teen Dental Plan so that eligible teenagers get annual preventive dental checks, and more than 80,000 dental checks have been undertaken so far, delivered by this government. In the face of the global financial crisis, we delivered economic stimulus payments to two million families to fend off the impact of the global financial crisis, to help those families and also to help the economy. It is this government that has also delivered an education tax refund—up to $750 for a primary school child and $1,500 per high school child—to help with the costs of education. These things did not exist under the previous government. There was not an education tax refund. There was no Medicare Teen Dental Plan.

Just this week, as well, we have delivered very, very significant welfare reforms to fight passive welfare and to do everything we can to make sure that welfare is spent in the interests of children so that the essentials of food and clothing are provided by families. It is this government that has also delivered Australia’s first National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children. Never before has the Commonwealth provided the sort of leadership that is needed in the area of child protection. It is this government that has introduced learn or earn conditions for payment of family tax benefits for young people aged 16 and over.

I finish on the critical issue of housing. Those opposite, of course, did not even have a minister for housing. It is this government that has put in place the National Rental Affordability Scheme, to make sure that low- and middle-income renters have a better chance of affordable rental housing. It is this government that delivered during the global financial crisis the first home owner’s boost, helping over 250,000 Australians to buy their first home. It is this government that has put in place first home saver accounts to help people save for their first home. And, of course, there is the very, very significant increase in investment in social housing. We are also delivering the Housing Affordability Fund, to make sure that we are able to deliver savings to homebuyers through the improved planning and development reform. These are the extensive changes that we have put in place, all of it delivered by the government.

My final point has to be about what we did, which the previous government refused to do, for pensioners. Age pensioners, disability support pensioners and carers, who waited for 12 years, finally got an increase because of this government. (Time expired)

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