Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Wendy is a single mum who lives in Maroubra in a rented flat with her 13-year-old daughter. Wendy works two casual jobs just to make ends meet and she is looking for more hours. She receives family tax benefit part A and part B and rent assistance. She lives from week to week and she told me that recently she had to borrow $1,000 from a friend just to register her car. Wendy is intent on bettering herself and she studies part-time for certificate IV in financial services accounting. She is trying to educate herself and her family out of the poverty trap. I guess you could describe Wendy as a decent, hardworking Aussie battler.

But life has just become a lot harder for Wendy and her daughter because the Turnbull government have just decided, as part of their budget priorities, that they will freeze for two years family tax benefit part A and part B, making life harder for Wendy and her kid to make ends meet. Put on top of that the fact that the Turnbull government supports cuts to penalty rates for the lowest paid workers. So, when people like Wendy work on weekends, her penalty rates will be cut in the future. They have taken away the children's dental scheme, so Wendy now struggles to get access to dental services for her daughter. If the government had their way, they would charge a co-payment every time Wendy went to the doctor or took her daughter to the doctor. And, if Wendy's daughter is lucky enough to win a place at a university, if the government had their way she would be paying $100,000 just to earn a degree. It gives you a picture of this government's priorities when it comes to the budget and the fact that they are intent on making life harder for hardworking Australians like Wendy.

On the flip side, if you are a large multinational business, if you are wealthy, what is the Turnbull government doing? They are giving you a tax cut whilst they are freezing the income of people like Wendy. Whilst they are cutting penalty rates, they are giving the biggest businesses in Australia a tax cut. If you earn more than $180,000 a year, you will get a tax cut under the Turnbull government's budget priorities. These large corporations that they wish to give a tax cut to include the big four Australian banks. Yes, believe it or not, they want to give a tax cut to the big four Australian banks. Don't those big banks need a leg up! Don't they deserve a handout from the government in these difficult times! Aren't these big banks struggling to make ends meet and they need a tax cut from the government!

Let's look at how the big banks have been performing over recent years. Let's look at the top of the list, the CBA, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. They made $9.45 billion in profit last year. They are the people who, over the course of the last couple of years, brought us the CommInsure scandal, where they ripped off hundreds of thousands of customers on their insurance. They are the ones who brought us the financial planning scandal, where they ended up having to review the files of literally tens of thousands of their customers because some of their planners had been ripping them off and forging documents. That is the Commonwealth Bank, with a profit of $9.45 billion. And then there is NAB. They made a cash profit of $6.48 billion, and what were they involved in? They recently sacked 41 of their planners for ripping off their customers and they recently paid back $14.5 million to customers for ripping them off. Then we go to Westpac. They made a cash profit of $7.82 billion and they recently had a banker who was jailed for forging signatures and falsifying documents and they had to refund 10,600 customers for charging them for insurance that they did not need.

All of these banks had planners who had to be reported to ASIC and have been sacked. Three of them are being prosecuted for manipulating the bank bill swap rate. And, believe this or not, with all of these scandals, not one executive of the big four banks has bitten the bullet or has got the sack for any of these scandals. They are the people that the Turnbull government want to give a tax cut to, but they want to make people like Wendy pay a lot more. It says everything about the budget priorities of this government. Is it any wonder you cannot get your budget through the Senate? Is it any wonder that the Labor Party is opposed to reforms such as those that you are proposing. People like Wendy have the ear of the Labor Party. We listen to people like Wendy and we will defend people like Wendy. (Time expired)

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