Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

More than 280,000 war veterans will be hurt by a change to pension indexation—$65 million out of their pockets; 310,000 pensioners will lose $4,000; and this is the last ever supplement that seniors will get. More than $800 will be ripped out of the pockets of seniors because of the way the member for Bass voted. University students will be paying more than $100,000 a year. A science student will pay $123,000 and university fees for nurses and teachers will go up but their wages will not go up. How will they afford university fees? The big lie of all of this is that there is a terrible crisis.

This lot came into government and what did they do? Their very first action was to double the deficit. They added $68 billion to the deficit. And this is the other great thing: they have to cut pensions, they have to cut family benefits, and they have to cut unemployment benefits. Young people will be without unemployment benefits for six months every year. They have to cut all these benefits because there is a big blow-out in benefits.

The Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey is called the HILDA survey. Those opposite may have missed this very important piece of work. It comes out very regularly. It shows that working age Australians have become far less dependent on welfare in recent years. In fact, Australia has the lowest level of welfare reliance in decades. So why have these cuts been made? If there is no deficit emergency, because they doubled the deficit, if there is no welfare emergency, because welfare rates are the lowest they have been in decades, why is it? It is to fund their crazy pet projects. It is to fund direct action. It is to fund paid parental leave—the least fair payment where you give the biggest benefit to the richest people. For that, they are going to cut pensions, they are going to cut the senior supplement, they are going to cut payments to veterans, they are going to cut payments to students, they are going to make it more expensive to get a university education, they are going to cut $80 billion from hospitals and schools. (Time expired)

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