Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, unfortunately, am not thrilled to be rising to talk about the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Payment Integrity) Bill 2019, as this is a bad bill and does not deserve the support of this place. I hope that the other place, as they did with the ensuring integrity bill, sees to it that it does not pass the other place.

Before I go into some of the parts of the bill, I am sure that when those opposite and their members got into this place, got elected, and managed to get the great privilege of being a part of this great parliament, these sorts of bills—when they won government—wouldn't be the things that they do in their day, that when they wake up, cutting funding from pensioners doesn't get them out of bed. I don't think that anyone on that side would have woken up this morning and said, 'You know what? We really need to take money off the pensioners, because that's going to make this country better, that's going to deal with the problems that face Australians today.' Yet that is what they do. For them, that's what government is all about. Government is about cutting. It's about cutting down services. It's about being punitive towards ordinary Australians. Yet none of them are willing to stand up and speak on this bill. I think it says a lot about the sort of quality of legislation that this government is putting in this House when it is only the Labor Party who are standing up and speaking against it. No government member is speaking for it, because it doesn't fill them with pride to talk about cutting pensions, it doesn't fill them with pride to talk about how to take money away from those vulnerable Australians and it doesn't fill them with pride to talk about how to squeeze every last dollar out of our welfare system.

It's hardly surprising given the leadership of the social services minister. She said:

Giving [people] more money would do absolutely nothing ... probably all it would do is give drug dealers more money and give pubs more money.

That is the social services minister. That is the person who is in charge of Australia's welfare system, our social safety net—something that I think is a great part of this country that says no Australian will be left behind, that we will be there as Australians to support you, that being an Australian is a thing of privilege, and it is a wonderful thing and we don't let Australians and fellow Australians suffer without support.

Yet they keep bringing these sorts of bills into the House. They keep bringing these sorts of bills that Joe Hockey would have been proud of—a punitive bill that is all about taking money away from pensioners. This bill will rip over $185 million from pensioners. This is not money that the government needs. This is money that the government is choosing to take off pensioners in Australia. Specifically with regard to those who have worked in Australia, who have given their time—many of the pensioners who are living in my electorate especially are ones who came here as migrants, who came to this country with very little and who have built a life here in this great country. For the small opportunity that we have given them, they have given back to this country far more. My grandparents were some of those people. My grandparents were pensioners. My grandfather somehow always had enough in his pension to give little gifts to his grandchildren. These are the sorts of people from whom this government is trying to rip out that little bit of funding to get them through the week.

I remember when I was doorknocking before the election and I was walking through Albert Park in Port Melbourne—

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