Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is astonishing to sit in this chamber today. Here we are, debating the discharge of some of the most appalling cuts that the parliament has seen over the last two terms of this shocking Liberal government. Not a single government member—all of whom, as previous Labor speakers to this debate have noted, were very vocal about their support for each and every one of these cuts—is prepared to stand up today to defend this motion. No-one is prepared to stand up and explain to the Australian people this sudden change of heart. Rightly, we on this side of the House are indeed questioning whether there has been a change of heart. I think that is what we are seeing in the budget and in this attempt to, rightfully, get rid of all of those appalling zombie measures. The government have not been able to get them through this parliament, for very good reasons. The Australian people voted for members in this House and members in the Senate to keep an eye on these guys and keep them honest about the sorts of policies they bring forward. So, if you cannot get your cuts through the Senate, do not just bemoan the fact that you do not have a majority in the Senate. There is a house of review for good reasons. They have not been successful. They are finally facing up to the Australian people to say, 'Okay, we cannot get these measures through.' Let us not kid ourselves: for that reason and that reason alone, these zombie cuts are back here to be discharged from this parliament, as they should be, and to bring some honesty back to the Australian people.

These cuts were never going to go through because they are bad public policy, they are bad for young people, they are bad for women, they are bad for jobseekers and they are bad for every Australian who seeks some kind of secure, affordable, universal health system in this country. These are all shocking measures that deserve to be gone, but let us not pretend for one moment that this government has had a change of heart.

This is a budget best described as a tactical budget, in my view. This is about political tactics, not about a heart. These guys are still stuck in the 17th century, believing in Rene Descartes's mind-body split. They can operate with a tactical headspace, but when it comes to nurturing and caring for the medical health and wellbeing of our citizens and the bodies of our body politic they do not want to know about it. These guys can operate with a dualism around all pretence. Honestly, expecting the Australian people now to believe that they have seen the error of their ways and they are now going back, hand on heart, saying, 'We now understand the havoc, hardship and pain that we have caused the Australian people over the last four years. We've seen the error of our ways. We've learnt, and we're now going to move on to new measures, we're moving on to new measures like those in the budget last night, through which we're going to continue to punish young people and jobseekers. Let's not bother investing in getting people job ready. Let's not bother investing in proper job creation so that people might have something to go on and work in.'

These are the guys who run around the country holding Ice Taskforce meetings, but when it comes to wanting to assist people into rehabilitation and treatment options they have nothing. These kids—many of whom are in regional areas represented by all of the wonderful members of the National Party, who have failed to show up for the debate this morning—are out there in those regional seats, absolutely struggling to access any form of assistance and treatment options for drug, alcohol and substance abuse. What this government has in store for them now is: 'You know what? We're going to start drug testing you.' God knows how that is going to happen. Centrelink is already underfunded and underresourced and is battling to cope with its existing responsibilities. Indeed, we saw under the Minister for Social Services, who sits before us, the infamous robo-debt across the country. My electorate was no different from anybody else's. Thousands of people were allegedly defrauding Centrelink, only for it to be discovered later after a bit of digging and a bit of advocacy on behalf of those people that, gosh, they actually had no debt to repay at all: 'It was just a little error. We've got a few IT glitch problems going on over at Centrelink. We've chopped a few staff'—5,000 staff—'out of Centrelink, so we've actually got no-one anymore to check on whether these debts raised are genuine.' Now we have the government saying in this budget they will go on and they will do some drug testing and get Centrelink to get all heavy handed again. Of course, it is the same agency that under this minister sitting here with us today has lost 5,000 staff and is under extraordinary pressures. Now they are floating the idea that they might even outsource a whole bunch of services for them. I am sure that is going to go down really well in my electorate, where people are already spending 90 minutes on the phone trying to get through to Centrelink. The people of Newcastle are not going to be fooled by the pretence that these guys have put a fix on Medicare, with their so-called guarantee. I am loath to use this comparison, but I think the reference to a 'fake guarantee' is suitable here.

I can only imagine the shenanigans going on in the back rooms of the Liberal Party right now. The reason no-one is in this chamber to defend these zombie cuts, let alone to speak on why they have come belatedly to the realisation that they need to remove these kinds of fake savings from the budget books, is that the media is out there today calling this a Labor budget. I can only imagine what is going on in that back room with the member for Warringah, the member for Menzies, the member for Dickson and the member for Dawson. They must be just seething about any such comparison. Indeed, whilst the Prime Minister is hoping this is enough to stitch up his job for the remaining few years, I suspect there is news for him waiting in polls to come and, indeed, in the feedback from each and every one of our electorates, because the Australian people are not gullible. They make smart decisions. They deserve a lot more from their governments. They deserve some honesty. They deserve some ministers who might actually stand up and debate these issues in parliament. They are a little bit light-on here.

But I take the point that others have made: it is too dangerous to let these guys go out on the public record. Let's face it. The member for Warringah will be pouncing on anything that has been said. That will inflame the disunity in the Liberal Party again. That is going to become the news story. Everyone is clearly under strict instructions. There is no need to issue key lines today, because the key line is: 'Zip it up. Do not talk. Let's not have anything that the Australian people might actually hold us to account for.' They cannot be trusted to stay on song. Nobody has a one-page happening over on that side of the parliament, so they cannot be trusted to go down that path. The new tactic on that side, again, is, 'Let's not pretend our heart's in this, but our head—our political tacticians—tells us to say nothing.'

Actually, it would be kind of nice to hear these guys stand up and apologise for the trauma and the distress they have caused to thousands and thousands of Australian people—indeed, millions of Australians, many of whom are the most vulnerable and marginalised people in this community. Many of them do not have a voice or a platform. They do not have the privilege of access to ministers here. Fortunately, they have the Australian Labor Party's ear. We will continue to stand up each and every day in this parliament, trying to get a fair deal for all Australians and to expose the trickle-down world view of the Liberal Party and this government, which thinks you can just continue to look after your mates at the big end of town and they will somehow generously provide some largesse for those less fortunate in the world. No-one believes that is the right pathway to go down. No Australian is fooled by this government's efforts in last night's budget or by this attempt to discharge those shocking zombie measures now. We know your heart is not in it. We know that the measures are waiting to come back at any given time.

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