Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday, also in question time, on the exact same matter, I was able to respond and tell the House that when we sought to make changes to child care those opposite considered those on $185,000 to be too rich—they themselves—and they opposed our plan. For a year, those opposite delayed the implementation of our package, and we had to be in a position of negotiating with the crossbench in the Senate, and we were able to come to an agreement with Senator Hinch that enabled our plan to be put in place.

Once our plan was put in place, there were a number of things that happened. Workforce participation continued to rise to record levels, and female workforce participation rose to record levels, and the gender pay gap went to record lows prior to the COVID-19 recession hitting this country. Those changes also led to out-of-pocket expenses—as a result of the changes we made—falling by over three per cent. These are inconvenient facts for those opposite, as is the fact that they opposed those changes for so long and refused to act to support what was a sensible, means-tested and targeted plan that had the desired effect of getting more people into work—getting more families into work, getting more women into work. That's what those changes produced. The Labor Party opposed those.

Mr Speaker, that's why you can never believe them on these things. They're for and against everything. They're for and against absolutely everything. They're for taxes and they're against taxes—higher taxes and lower taxes. You can't follow them.

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