Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, I rise to speak on the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Seniors Health Card and Other Measures) Bill 2014. Unlike the good member for Wakefield, I actually will address the issues in this bill. This bill implements yet another of the coalition's election commitments, and this time it is our commitment to index the income thresholds for qualification for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card. The beneficiaries of this bill will be 30,000 Australians who are self-funded retirees, who have worked hard all their life, who have been successful, who have sacrificed and who have put some money aside so that they would not have to rely on big government. These 30,000 people will benefit from this bill, otherwise they would have missed out. The reason they would have missed out on qualifying for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card is that during the six years of the previous Labor government, despite all the reckless spending, the waste and the mismanagement such as sending $900 cheques to people overseas and borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars from overseas, they could not make that little step of indexing the income thresholds for people to qualify for this card. So 30,000 Australians, self-funded retires, who would have otherwise missed out on the seniors healthcare card will now qualify because of the changes that this government is making.

We know the reason why this measure was not taken during the six years of the Labor government. We know it is also the reason, despite the fairness of this measure, that members of the opposition have signified in their contributions to this debate that they are going to vote against this bill. I think the member for Bowman said it best during his contribution to this debate. He said that it was because Labor see self-funded retirees—those great Australians who have worked all their life and saved so that they would not be reliant on government—as 'enemies of the state'. The member for Bowman's words ring very true. So it is no surprise that we see the Labor Party in this chamber attacking self-funded retirees.

As I said earlier, today is a great day for self-funded retirees because of the measures in this bill. It is also a great day for self-funded retirees and, in fact, for all Australians, because today is the day when we finally see that the carbon tax is dead and buried. Electricity costs will be cheaper. Gas prices will come down. We know that small business—that important engine room of our economy—will benefit through lower costs. We know that Australian businesses will finally take a step to regain their international competitiveness. We know that jobs will be created, because finally the carbon tax joins that list of foolish taxes which have been sent to the taxation graveyard.

I think it is worthwhile in the short time that I have tonight to remember some of those foolish taxes throughout history, which the carbon tax now joins. First there was the Window Tax—a tax introduced back in 1696, when King William III of England introduced what was called an 'act of making good the deficiency of clipped money'.

See this speech in context