Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Disability Reform) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. Anyway, if the member would like to give me all those questions, we will have a look at them, but I will just correct a couple of other matters that he raised. He asserted that the schoolkids bonus was paid for by the mining tax. If I can also correct the member for Mayo: that is false, and he should know by now that that is false.

Mr Briggs interjecting—

It is false and the member for Mayo should know that it is false. One thing that is not false about what the member for Mayo said is that if the Liberals are successful at the next election then they will take this money off families, even though it is not funded from the mining tax, so his whole rationale has no basis in fact whatsoever. What that will mean for families is that they will lose, over the school life of their children, $15,000. That means $15,000 will come out of the pockets of families, because of decisions made by this Leader of the Opposition. The member for Mayo should get out there and tell every single family member in his electorate currently receiving the Schoolkids Bonus that that is exactly what he intends to do. He intends to take $15,000 out of their pockets, money that they use. This is money that those families use to pay for school shoes, to pay for school books, to pay for school uniforms, to pay for excursions—all the things that children need.

The member for Mayo also talked about the families kits. He asked a whole range of questions, and I will have a look at those later. I would like to inform the member for Mayo that kits have been ordered by the member for Hughes, the member for McMillan, the member for Leichhardt and the member for Calare. Plainly all of those members have found the families kits very, very useful, and they will be handing them out to their constituents. I hope when the member for Hughes, the member for McMillan, the member for Leichhardt and the member for Calare are handing out their Schoolkids Bonus, they put in an extra note from the Leader of the Opposition which tells the truth about the Schoolkids Bonus. This note should tell the truth that the Leader of the Opposition is going to take all of this money straight off families. That is exactly what he intends to do. When you are distributing your families kits and telling people what they are going to lose, make sure you do not miss that one.

See this speech in context