Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This week we had a great insight into the prejudices and the true thoughts of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, when he was asked a question in question time, couldn't help but drop his guard and to tell us all here in the House exactly what he thought about ordinary working- and middle-class Australians. On Monday, the Prime Minister and his government took aim at hardworking aged-care workers in Tasmania. He said: 'The 60-year-old aged care worker in Burnie is entitled to aspire to get a better job.' This is a man from a privileged background who has had his choice of plumb jobs his whole life. He certainly feels entitled. Since word of the Prime Minister's out-of-touch comments came to light in my home state of Tasmania, I have been contacted by many hardworking constituents who feel that it is the Prime Minister who should be doing a better job. To be honest, I agree he should be doing a better job. He should be doing a better job for hardworking Australians like the Tasmanian aged-care workers on $45,000 a year who will get a tax cut of just $10 a week, while the Prime Minister's former banker mates will receive tax cuts of up to $7,000 a year.

One of the hardworking constituents who contacted me is Jenny Marshall, a 55-year-old aged-care worker in Launceston. She's disgusted with this out-of-touch Prime Minister. She says, 'People work in aged care not for the money. They do it because they care. They care about people. They're not looking to go and getter a better job. We work there because we care about people. Everyone is disgusted with what he said. How dare he say that? See how he would go doing an eight-hour shift as an aged-care worker $21. 83 an hour. He wouldn't last a minute.'

This Prime Minister and his government should prefer to do a better job for everybody rather than simply doing a better job for the wealthy. He consistently fails low- and middle-class Australian workers. In contrast to this, a Shorten Labor government is ready to do a better job by providing hardworking Australians with a bigger, better tax cut. Unlike this government, which is giving a $17 billion tax cut to the big banks and a $7,000-a-year tax cut to their CEO banker mates who run them, Labor believes hardworking lower- and middle-class Australians need and deserve relief. The government's argument is that if the big banks, which are already making huge profits, make even bigger profits then maybe—just maybe—hardworking Australians might get, if they're lucky, a wage rise.

Workers with lived experience, like the hardworking aged-care workers in my constituency, find this Prime Minister to be seriously out of touch. They know that wages are barely keeping pace with the cost of living, and they're not keeping pace with the profitability of the big end of town either. What has this Prime Minister done for wages? He's refused to do anything about cuts to penalty rates. His plan was to cut wages by slashing penalty rates and arguing against raising the minimum wage.

In contrast, Labor is ready to do a better job for working Australians, by delivering a bigger, better and fairer tax cut for 10 million working Australians. Labor's tax refund for working Australians increases the tax cuts presently legislated under the government's tax offset proposal. This means that under Labor working- and middle-class Australians will pay less tax, because a tax cut for families is more important than a $17 billion tax giveaway to the big banks.

Australians believe in a fair go for all. Our tax and transfer system is—or was—one of the most progressive in the world. This means that the tax that we pay, as well as the benefits we receive, are highly targeted to those who need it—and, of course, it goes to pay for things like public education and public health. Under this government, our egalitarian society that we're all so proud of is at risk. A flat rate of tax is not the way to address that.

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