Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Or the Treasurer. The Treasurer could have denied calling it a fraud. I did not hear a personal explanation taken to deny this claim. No, because—perhaps in a moment of weakness—they showed their true agenda. They showed their true prejudice.

The Minister for Social Services is on quite a campaign—the new Minister for Social Services, the soft and cuddly Minister for Social Services! He could start by apologising to Australian mothers. He could start by apologising and admitting he got it wrong, admitting that he should never have said that. But he will not do that, because he still believes it. They stand by the policy. It is an outrageous policy that they have. It is an insult to the Australian people for the Treasurer, the Minister for Social Services, the Prime Minister and the Assistant Treasurer to say to those people who negotiated things in good faith, those people who negotiated with their employers and gave up wage increases and other conditions so they could spend more time with newborn children that they are rorters and take this condition away in a clear breach of an election commitment. They were promised a rolled gold parental leave scheme and instead they got Abbott's ambush from this Prime Minister who stands for nothing except prejudice.

This is the sort of treatment of Australian families we see from this government. It runs through the last budget and this budget, and I predict it will run until we see the defeat of the Abbott government. Until we see the defeat of this government, we will see this prejudice exhibited time and time again. It is prejudice which results in the budget deficit doubling as their impact on improving the budget bottom line.

We know that the Treasurer has told us there are no alternatives but his way. We also know that is not true. The Assistant Treasurer might in his remarks talk about some of the alternatives. He might in his remarks talk about Labor's plan to make sure multinationals pay a fair share of tax. He might talk about superannuation. The Assistant Treasurer is here. I had a feeling he might be here. I have a soft spot for the Assistant Treasurer. He's not the best Assistant Treasurer we've ever had, but he's in the top 10! There have been 11! But in a press release last night he said: 'And Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen need to get their stories straight. One says the budget is too soft and the other says it's not tough enough.' Maybe in his remarks he could explain what the difference is between being too soft on the one hand and not tough enough on the other. We'd love to hear it! You could start with it. There is an introduction for the Assistant Treasurer: we would love to hear him explain the difference between too soft and not tough enough. (Time expired)

See this speech in context