Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

Question time starts in 10 minutes, and I guarantee the epithet of class war will be thrown about an awful lot from the government. It is true that a class war is happening right now. It is a class war being perpetuated by the government. They've declared war on the vast majority of Australians who don't earn $200,000 and upwards each year, the vast majority of Australians who struggle every day to pay their bills, to afford their kids' excursion, to put clothes on their backs.

The tax changes that passed through the Senate today represent that class war, a class war where a lawyer on $200,000 will get a seven-grand tax cut whereas a typical worker in my electorate will get $9.80 a week. To justify this class war, they've made all sorts of ridiculous claims that forklift drivers earn 160 grand a year. Give us one example of a forklift driver who earns 160 grand a year. Principals are described as the typical educational professional in this country—head mistresses—when they are three per cent of the education workforce. The truth is the median electorate worker in my electorate earns $47,000. The median worker in the country earns a bit over $50,000. We have one in five kids in this country who at least once a year will go to school without a meal. That is a disgrace. That's where we need funding, not a seven-grand tax cut for the top end of town when people are going hungry.

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