Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that this government has no plan to alleviate poverty and ensure a fair go for all Australians because this is a government that is defined by who they are against and they are practically against all Australians, particularly those Australians who are struggling in regional Australia. When it comes to the regions, the people there blame the National Party because the National Party have abandoned the people who live in rural, remote and regional Australia. As I have said many times before and will say again today, National Party choices hurt, and they never fight for a fair go. They never do that. Why is that? I'll tell you why. It is because the National Party are weak. They are weak at the very heart of it. In fact, we saw that today, with them having a very public tantrum. They were quite upset when the Prime Minister made an announcement on radio at the same time as they were having a press conference. So what was their reaction to that? They had a huge tantrum! It is all outlined in a very interesting tweet by Thomas O'Brien, who, of course, is a Sky News Canberra bureau chief. I won't actually read the detail of the tweet. The wording of it, and these are the National Party's words about themselves, is actually quite offensive; indeed, I think not quite parliamentary language. But even they themselves admitted they are weak. That is the reality. The legacy of this government and the legacy of the National Party will be their failure to give a fair go to Australians and their failure to assist those who are doing it tough.

This week is Anti-Poverty Week and we have heard some of the facts, like these: three million Australians are living below the poverty line; more than 700,000 children are living below the poverty line; over 1.1 million Australians are underemployed. At the same time as these facts are coming out, the International Monetary Fund has downgraded Australia's economic growth projections. This is this government's shameful legacy. The fact is that people are struggling, especially in the regions, and this government's failure to act is making life more and more difficult, whether that is for young people looking for work or wanting to study or for our seniors struggling on their pensions or desperate for home care, or for those Australians on Newstart doing it tough or for workers impacted by the cuts to their penalty rates, or for all of those people at risk of homelessness who can't find affordable housing, or for sick people in need of a healthcare system or for farmers suffering in the drought. They are all desperate for real action from this government. The fact is: the National Party and this government have failed to support all of those people in need.

This is a government without a plan. They are not fixing the NDIS and Centrelink. They are not reversing their cuts to pensions. They are not properly investing in our schools, TAFEs and universities. They are not properly investing in our health and hospital services and, really importantly too, they have no plan for jobs and no plan for regional jobs. We have high levels of unemployment and high levels of underemployment, and they have no plans to fix the economy nor for investing in infrastructure, which is what's needed.

This government's constant attacks on our pensioners are impacting seniors right across the country. The Prime Minister still stubbornly refuses to adjust the deeming rate and, in doing so, is short-changing pensioners yet again. We know the government have a really extensive history of cuts to pensions, going back to all of their horror budgets over the past few years. Time and time again they have attacked our pensioners. We also have a government ignoring the calls from many in the community to have an increase to Newstart and, again, we call on them to do that. There is an urgent need to raise the rate of Newstart. In fact, the number of over 55s on Newstart has surged by a staggering 45 per cent under this government. With a quarter of Newstart recipients 55 or over, many people who have worked their whole lives are now living in poverty and struggling to find affordable accommodation. Indeed, in the regions there's a massive housing affordability and homelessness crisis, and people receiving Centrelink benefits are the hardest hit. Families and individuals without secure, full-time employment and who rely on some form of Centrelink allowance to survive are doing it really tough—and this government just doesn't care.

The government has a shameful economic record on top of that. Australians are really worried about their job security, they're worried about the massive increases to their living costs and they're worried about their wages. They're really concerned. But this government, with this National Party, continues to do nothing. They have no plans at all to meet the economic challenges facing our nation, and there are many economic challenges. They have absolutely no agenda at all to build a better and bigger and stronger Australia—no plans for investing in infrastructure. This is a government also that has no plan to alleviate poverty and to assure a fair go for all Australians, no matter where they live.

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