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

Yes; the member for Boothby is correct. The equivalent of 80 per cent of personal income tax paid by Australians goes to pay for Centrelink payments in this nation. That is growing at six per cent every year. There are more and more demands on Centrelink—six per cent every year. This is why we have had to do a review of those on the disability pension. I am sure that some people have found that quite distressing. But the reason that is being done is to make sure that in the future going forward we can ensure that we can give those who really need that disability payment every resource that we can.

The other mess that we inherited from the Labor government that we are trying to clean up is the interest payments that we must face. This government needs to find $1 billion every single month in interest payments. That is the equivalent of $35 million every single day. If it had not been for the wasteful mismanagement of the six years of Labor government, a lot of that money could have been put back in to helping those most vulnerable people in our society.

We have also heard the very sad comment about how those on the other side simply misunderstand this economy. They claim that $150 billion worth of payments we make through Centrelink is all thanks to Labor. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with those hardworking men and women in our society—in our cities, suburbs and regional and rural areas—that go out every single day and earn wealth for this country. Unless we first create the wealth, we do not have anything to distribute. So when members on the other side stand up and argue about policies, when they try and tie our businesses up with red and green tape, the real people they are harming are the most vulnerable in our society.

We need to encourage people to take entrepreneurial risk, try new business ideas, try new methods of production to create the wealth that enables us to support the most vulnerable. I am proud of what this government is doing. (Time expired)

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