Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mouths like that won't do you any good either. Today, those that have gone from parenting payment to Newstart are struggling in a way that they shouldn't be struggling in a nation like this, and the women of this parliament should understand that better than anybody else. We have a job to do for those families and we haven't done the right thing by them. If you want to talk about early childhood intervention, we've spent $5,000 at the children's centre at Korumburra and we've just turned the first sod for the Warragul centre, and they're going to be visionary places for kids to learn, into the future. And you know all the reasons why we're doing it—because the infrastructure in country areas has been a disgrace, and we're now spending money on that.

But I reiterate that we have a job to do for single-parent families. Whoever the government is after the next election, it needs to put some real effort—this whole parliament needs to put some real effort—into those families, who are doing it harder than any other families.

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