Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We don't know. But when the government unveiled their attacks on pensions, we said that if they wanted to rip away the pension they would have to come through the Labor Party. You would have to come through the Labor Party, we said. All Australians know that the Liberal Party and their country proxies, the Nationals, have tried their best to come through the Labor Party to attack 3.7 million pensioners. But I can report to the parliament and to Australia they have failed on this occasion. We have met them and we have defeated them.

And we will make clear again that this government's retreat from this destroys the credibility of the budget and it destroys the credibility of the Prime Minister. It has taken the Prime Minister more than four months to realise that this unfair budget was not going to wash with Australians. It took Labor four minutes; it took Australians four minutes. But make no mistake: these arrogant characters who sit opposite, who believe they have a born to rule mentality to make whatever decisions they can, inflicting pain and hurt on ordinary Australians, are introducing these measures again. Tony Abbott wants to cut your pensions. Tony Abbott wants to cut the funding to schools and the funding to hospitals. He wants to cut billions from schools and hospitals. He wants to increase your taxes. He has not given up on his GP tax. He wants to make you pay more for going to the doctor when you are sick.

The real solution to defeating these people and their rotten measures is not just defeating their legislation, as we have on this occasion, it is to defeat Tony Abbott. As long as Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party occupy the benches of government and occupy the seat of the Prime Minister, Australians will always have to fear these people coming after their pensions. We did not ask the Liberals to make pensions an election issue. We did not ask them to do that, but they have and so we will answer them and we will prevail.

Do not look at what this Prime Minister says, look at what he does. He breaks his promises and he lied to people before the election. They have their plans for Australia—their rotten, nation-dividing, impoverishing plans, picking on the vulnerable, unfair changes without a mandate—they have them in the top drawer. They have not put them in the bin. What Australia needs to do is put Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party in the bin of election politics, because that is the only way we will stop these people.

Look at the Minister for Immigration giving me one of his stares!

Mr Morrison interjecting—

It is the 'Minister for Homeland Security' now—whatever your title! We had better check with the foreign minister, Sunshine. Returning to the topic, the current Prime Minister—

Mr Morrison interjecting—

We could call you the alternative Liberal Prime Minister—whatever you want to be called, General! But what I say to you is that we will fight these changes.

Today we have had a victory and pensioners have had a victory. Today the government has retreated in the face of public disapproval and the combined weight of outrage and the voice of ordinary people, and if we want to defeat these pension changes again—which they are so eager, so hungry to bring on—then we will defeat them at the election.

Make no mistake, Australia, this government wants to cut the indexation rate of pensions. They want to cut the rate of pension payments to veterans. They want to change the payments which go to young people under the age of 30 looking for work. They want to go after family tax benefit payments to hundreds of thousands of Australians. This is a government that has no plans for the future other than dividing this country, making the vulnerable pay more, and creating a lack of confidence in the high street of Australian small businesses by their attacks on the pensions. The good news is that we have won today, and the better news is that at the next election we will hold this government to account and we shall succeed in our arguments there too,

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