Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, what an act to follow from the member for Riverina. I'm just trying to tease out the logic through that argument and a number of the arguments we've heard from those opposite over recent weeks. On one hand, apparently, if you listen to those opposite, this bill is no good. In fact, the plan is no good—nothing to see here, we shouldn't go ahead with it. On the other hand, they say it's too slow, that we've taken too long to bring it in. Well, if that's the case, if we've taken too long to bring it in, why don't we get on with it? Come with us, support it, let's get it through the parliament, let's get it going.

It's the same argument we've heard on tax cuts this week: no good, these tax cuts won't help Australians, these are not delivering what Australians need when they're doing it tough. People are doing it tough—but hold on: they don't need a tax cut now. That's the argument from the other side. Yet they voted for it. In the end they voted for it. So, all I can say is that at the moment we certainly do not look for logic from those on the other side.

We don't look for policies, either, because when it comes to policies on how they are going to support Australians with the cost-of-living crisis, how they are going to support Australians into homeownership, there's nothing—nothing on the table. All we get from those opposite, and we've certainly seen this in the last fortnight—we have had these revelations in the last fortnight—is internal mechanisms dealing with fallout from nearly a decade in government, nearly a decade to do something about homeownership in this country and to make sure that younger Australians could get into the housing market. They had nearly a decade to do that. But we've seen on the ABC over the past few weeks that that was not a huge focus of the successive Liberal-Nationals governments that we had.

See this speech in context