Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

Why is it, do you think, that he will not actually say what is on his mind? It is because they actually believe in these cuts. This minister has stood at this dispatch box day after day and defended these cuts—defended the cuts to families, defended the cuts to the unemployed and defended the cuts to pensioners, because they do not 'get' fairness. These Liberals do not understand fairness.

It has been a long and very, very hard battle. It has been a hard battle. We have fought every single day of the last four years, and stood by the Australian people as we have stopped these cuts going through the parliament. Every single Labor member of parliament has done everything possible to stop these cuts going through the parliament. And today here we see this government—temporarily—removing them out of the Notice Paper. But of course we know, and the Australian people know, that we are not out of the woods. Do not think for a second that this Prime Minister is doing this for any reason other than to protect his own skin, to protect himself against the member for Warringah and to protect himself against the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, who happens to be here in the chamber today. Maybe even the Minister for Social Services has aspirations for leadership. We know that these Liberals would bring back these unfair and harsh cuts in a heartbeat if they ever got the chance.

I happened to hear the Prime Minister on Fran Kelly's show this morning, talking about these zombie cuts. What do you think he might have said, Mr Speaker? Fran Kelly said, 'Are you just getting rid of these zombie measures because you're sick of them and sick of the fights over them, or are you getting rid of them because you think they're bad measures?' The Prime Minister said, 'Um, they can't be legislated.' Fran Kelly said, 'But are they bad measures?' The Prime Minister said, 'It's not a question of good or bad; they were measures which we thought and which we believed had merit.' That is what they do believe. They believe these cuts to families, to pensioners and to the unemployed have merit. They think they are good cuts. That is why they pursued them for the last four years.

Let's go through them. First of all, in my view, the worst of all is the cut that was announced in the 2014 budget to say to young unemployed people, 'You will have nothing to live on for six months—nothing!' That is what this government said to the young unemployed people of this country. They could not get that through the parliament so they tried a different approach. They said, 'You have to wait for five weeks and have nothing to live on.' Fortunately, they could not get that through the parliament either. What this shows is they absolutely believe in those sorts of harsh cuts, like the cuts to young people who are aged between 22 and 24. They want to push them off Newstart, which is already low enough, and onto the lower youth allowance—a cut of $48 a week. That is what these people opposite want to do to the poorest young people in the country.

Of course, none of us forgets the absolute mess that this government has made of paid parental leave cuts. We know that this government really want to cut into paid parental leave. They would have actually cut paid parental leave to 70,000 new mothers every year. Mothers just getting home with a new baby would have found out that this government wanted to take away some of their paid parental leave. They want to scrap family tax benefit end of year supplements, leaving families worse off. They want to scrap the pensioner education supplement and the education entry payment. They want to cut the pension of pensioners who were born overseas. And so it goes on.

For so many days we have stood at this dispatch box defending the pensioners and defending families, and all we have gotten from those opposite—particularly from this minister—is a lecture about fiscal restraint. They have actually told us with a completely straight face that they think these measures are fair. This minister in particular has form. Do you all remember the snakes and ladders interview?

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