Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That this House censures the Prime Minister and the Government for its plans to cut the benefits received by 400,000 carers and more than 2 million seniors, in particular:

(a)

for failing to guarantee that the carers and seniors bonuses paid in the last Budget when the surplus was $12 billion will be paid in the forthcoming Budget when the surplus is expected to be much larger;

(b)

for failing to detail any alternative means to ensure that carers and pensioners will not be worse off as a result of the Budget, as promised; and

(c)

for leaving two and a half million Australians in a state of uncertainty over the future because this Government doesn’t understand how to manage the economy.

The Liberal and National parties in government built a strong economy for Australia. It was an economy of sustained and strong growth, an economy that delivered record low unemployment, an economy that delivered strong business confidence and investment. It was also a government that delivered surplus budgeting to Australia, which had been unknown when there was a change of government from the last Labor government in 1996. The Liberal and National parties in government built a strong economy so as to give Australians confidence—confid-ence in ourselves and confidence in our future—but it also built a strong economy to enable this nation to care for its weak, its vulnerable, its sick and its elderly.

In its last four budgets, the previous government delivered, amongst other things, a $1,600 lump sum cash payment—a carer payment and a carer allowance—to some 400,000 carers, at a cost of just under $400 million. Disability and carers support over 11½ years benefited from a 75 per cent real increase in funding under the previous coalition government. In 2005, Access Economics in its study of the contribution of Australia’s carers to this nation estimated that carers contribute 1.2 billion hours of care, which is equal to more than $30 billion of formal aged and disability care services.

So who are these carers, some 400,000 or so? They are men and women who are frequently faceless, who neither seek nor receive reward in any visible or public way for what they do every single day. They are men and women who are caring frequently for adult disabled children. They are caring for someone whom they love who is in desperate need of support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They are men and women who have adult parents who are in desperate need, who have children of all ages, who frequently juggle a job—if they can find any time at all to do it. They live across a 24-hour cycle on anything from one to three or four hours of sleep, and they do so seven days a week, 365 days of the year. They are the unsung heroes of this nation. They are the real saints of Australian society.

When we talk about an Australian community, these are the men and women who give real meaning to what it is to be a community, who give effect to the thing that we describe colloquially as mateship—to put yourself out for someone else, to go the extra mile, to do the things that are important—and they do so with a limited amount of support and, under this newly elected government, even less confidence in their economic future. As I said to the Prime Minister last week, ‘For God’s sake, these are the real heroes of our nation. They are the real saints, and they deserve our strong support.’ So it was with a great sense of alarm that I saw, when the Australian arrived on Friday, a headline that said ‘Razor gang slices out compassion as carer bonus slashed’. There was a photograph of Mr Ashley Norman and his wife, Pat, in the outer suburbs of Mackay, whom I visited, and a cartoon of our Prime Minister letting a man in a wheelchair go down the side of a mountain.

I might point out to the House that the chairman of the razor gang, the chairman of the Expenditure Review Committee—according to the government’s own online directory of government services—is the Prime Minister. This is the man whose background as a public servant is now coming to the fore, the bureaucrat who in Queensland was responsible for the dismissal of so many working Australians, who went from being working families to workless families.

It is important for us to appreciate that the extent to which we reach out to and support carers and those whom they love and for whom they provide—the elderly and the frail—are the critical measures of a caring society and the critical measures of a caring government. The response to this headline and this story was not for the Prime Minister or any one of his ministers to come out and say, ‘No, it’s not true,’ to say instead that the lump sum payment is guaranteed. The Prime Minister may say that he has not got it in his budget for his so-called forward estimates, but I can sure as hell tell the Prime Minister that these 400,000 carers have got it in their budget.

When I went to Mackay on Saturday to visit the victims of flood, and to support and thank the carers, volunteers and emergency services, I went to see Mr Ashley Norman and his wife, Pat. They live in a modest, small dwelling in the outer suburbs of Mackay. Ashley Norman is 73 and he is dying. He is oxygen dependent, he takes 20 medications a day, he has had major heart surgery, he has had at least two significant heart attacks, his lung capacity is down to 35 per cent, he has an abdominal aortic aneurism which can rupture at any time, he has severe diabetes and he has peripheral neuropathy, which means he, for different reasons, but like our Prime Minister cannot feel what is going on in his extremities. His wife of 52 years, Pat, looks after him 24 hours a day—looks after him, as he described to me, ‘as a baby’. His wife of 52 years of marriage—that woman—gives him support 24 hours a day. ‘Without her,’ as he said to me, ‘Brendan, I would be dead. D-E-A-D.’ And as far as that $1,600 is concerned, it may not mean much to a Prime Minister or a minister of a government with the incomes that we collectively earn in this place, but it sure as hell means a lot to Ashley Norman and Pat, and it means a hell of a lot to the 400,000 carers throughout this country.

What has been the response of the Prime Minister? He said something publicly yesterday—it was not lunchtime on Friday; we had another issue involving care recently, and the problem was sorted by lunchtime. We did not have this one sorted by lunchtime on Friday. We did not have it sorted by Friday night. It was not sorted by Saturday, when we got up to a headline which said, ‘Now razor gang goes for seniors’. Instead the Prime Minister sent his ministers out to run some drivel about budget process. They sound like a bunch of bureaucrats being run by a bureaucrat. What does that mean to someone struggling with a husband dying from motor neurone disease? What does it mean to an adult who has an ageing mother with Parkinson’s disease, incontinent at three o’clock in the morning and who desperately needs to buy a new fridge? What does it mean to Ashley and Pat Norman and their family, who have not had a holiday for 20 years? What it means is that they cannot budget.

The government are going through the process—as they should—of budgeting for our nation’s finances. We just hope that they know what they are doing and that they get it right. But there are some things that rise above it. Whoever was the source of this story out of the razor gang chaired by the Prime Minister was trying to do something to protect people, because, unlike our Prime Minister and our new government, that person at least appears to appreciate what this means to everyday, fair dinkum Australians. I am talking about people who are struggling not only with grocery prices but struggling, if they can afford a 25-year old car like Pat Stafford’s, to be able to run it. These are people who are struggling not just with their credit cards; these are people, Prime Minister, who are literally struggling to survive, for whom life is a day-to-day struggle for survival.

The lump sum payments delivered by the previous government in the last four years were a consequence of the strong economy that had been delivered. They were a consequence of tough decisions made by the member for Higgins as Treasurer, the former member for Bennelong and everybody who was then sitting on the other side—decisions that were opposed by those who are now in government. When we were in government we said: ‘Right, who’s at the top of the list? Who are the people—now we’ve paid off the Labor government’s debt, now we’ve got interest rates down to a manageable level, now we’ve got lots more working families, because we have unemployment at a 30-year low—that we put at the top of that list?’ At the top of that list we put the Pat Staffords, the Ashley and Pat Normans, the men and women of this country who are the most deserving people and who are so desperately in need of financial support. We delivered to them a $1,600 lump sum payment. And we delivered it every year for four years.

So I say to the Prime Minister and the government: put aside your pride and embarrassment about being caught out on this; put aside the fact that the all-controlling Prime Minister would not allow his ministers to sort this out and end the grief and distress amongst Australia’s vulnerable carers, seniors, elderly and frail. I say to the Prime Minister—notwithstanding the fact that we feel so strongly about this that we are censoring the Prime Minister: just get up; for God’s sake, get up, stand in front of that microphone and say to the carers of this country, ‘I, the Prime Minister of Australia, believe in you and will deliver you a lump sum payment in the budget.’ It is not that hard. We were lectured and told it was not hard to do some other things, and we on this side have gone through a process of supporting things which we believe are in the nation’s best interests. This is not only in the nation’s best interests; this is in the interests of men and women who feel that they have no voice.

The reason why the carers have all been out and saying the things they have is not that they are political activists. They have differing political views. Some of those carers who received that $1,600 lump sum and the seniors and the elderly who received a $500 lump sum payment from the previous coalition government did not vote for us. That is not what this is about. This is about them. It is not about us. It is not about bureaucrats. What is it that the Labor Party does not get? It is now so occupied by former union officials, political apparatchiks and bureaucrats that it has lost sight of what government is about. The reason why the people in the gallery and the people watching this on television elect a government is that they expect men and women of decency who understand and care for them to stand between them and the bureaucrats that could otherwise run the country. That is why this is so important.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that these people will not be a cent worse off. He said it again today in the House, which is why we have had to move this motion of censure against the Prime Minister—a very, very serious thing. He said they will not be a cent worse off than they are. He has refused to guarantee the lump sum payment. For someone earning $250,000 a year, a lump sum payment of $1,600 would probably make them think: ‘What’s that? It’s my credit card payment or whatever.’ Can I just say to the Prime Minister, having spent much of my professional life, when I was practising medicine, working with these families—and sometimes I was with people at three o’clock in the morning who had not slept for 24 hours and who had not one but two severely autistic children—that a lump sum payment is everything. If you are hanging out for that lump sum payment, it is absolutely essential for your budgeting. It is the difference between sinking and swimming. That is why the coalition government and the Liberal and National parties delivered it. That is why it is so important—not for the political interest of the government but for the men and women that this censure motion and this debate are about—that this has to be delivered.

This morning I listened to AM. I also listened to Radio National and I listened to Fran Kelly interview Nell Brown. I hope the Prime Minister heard the interview. If the Prime Minister did not hear the interview, I ask him to get one of his many helpers to get the audio of the interview. Nell Brown has an adult daughter in her 20s. The daughter does not just have an intellectual disability; she also suffers from schizophrenia. Nell Brown was asked this question by Fran Kelly: ‘There has been some talk about stretching over the course of the year. Would that help?’

So the question is: would the $1,600 payment, instead of a lump sum, if it was about $30 a week parked into your payment, help? She is asked that question. This woman is not some sort of political activist. For God’s sake, she is trying to work a part-time job and look after her adult daughter. What did she say when she was asked whether it would help to spread it over the year—which would be the Prime Minister’s ‘she won’t be a cent worse off’ remark? I might add this was after five days—not on day one, not on day two; it took him five days to say anything. At the same time he was overseas. She said:

No, not at all.

She went on to say:

But when you actually get a lump of money put in your hand, well, if you are desperate for something, you can have it.

‘Desperate’—these are lives that are lived in quiet desperation, with limited support.

Imagine, Prime Minister, being in a situation where you have a child who has an intellectual disability, then compounded by developing schizophrenia in their young adult life. Then you would find out what the services run by the states are actually like and how poor they are—particularly in Queensland, as a result of a certain fellow known as ‘Dr Death’ in an earlier government up there. That is when you would find out just how lousy the services are. ‘Desperation’ is the word. These men and women are desperate every day, and they desperately need a lump sum payment, because, if you are struggling on $12,000 or $15,000 a year, there is a hell of a lot of difference between $30 a week and $1,600—as it has been under the Liberal-National coalition over the last four years.

That may not mean much to some people that earn high incomes. They may wonder what this is all about. My plea to the government and to the Prime Minister is: walk a mile in their shoes. You do not have to spend a week with them; just spend 24 hours with them. You have sent your members out to visit schools. We have had bread and circuses for the past 3½ months of this government. One of the little things they did was to send all of the Labor backbenchers out to visit schools—the education revolution. My challenge to the Prime Minister is: send them out to spend 24 hours with a carer and ask the carer whether the $1,600 lump sum payment is important to them. That is what you actually need to do, Prime Minister.

We believe Australians have been betrayed. We believe that Australia’s carers, her seniors, her frail, her elderly and the Ashley and Pat Normans of this world have been betrayed. It is absolutely essential that the Prime Minister not only redeem the confidence that they must have in the government of the day but redeem himself by coming to that dispatch box now and saying, ‘They will receive a $1,600 lump sum payment so they can get on with their lives and literally live those lives.’

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The problem with this censure motion is that it is just based on a false premise. The charge is that, in relation to the bonus system, the government will not guarantee that pensioners and carers will not be financially worse off. We have made a very clear-cut commitment. When it comes to the bonus system, we have guaranteed that carers and pensioners will not be financially worse off as a result of the budget. That position was made absolutely clear by the government before parliament convened. It has been made absolutely clear on the Hansard here in parliament today that pensioners and carers, when it comes to their bonus payments, will not be a dollar worse off. Despite the fact that that assurance was provided prior to coming into the parliament, despite the fact that that assurance has been provided on at least four or five occasions in the parliament in responses to various questions legitimately asked by those opposite—we are here to be responsible to those who constitute the opposition—despite having said that time and time and time again, because it is in the prepositioning of the opposition tactics committee to have a censure motion on this matter, off they go. The answer that you wanted, the guarantee that you wanted provided, has been provided, and it has been done in absolute black-and-white terms.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition was heard in silence. This is a serious matter. The Prime Minister should be heard in silence.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks very much, Mr Speaker. The guarantee is clear-cut. When it comes to carers and pensioners and the impact of the bonus system on them, they will not be a dollar worse off. Beyond that, what we have said is that we need to work through ways and means by which those who receive these bonus payments can have payments made to them on a more secure footing into the future. We believe that is a reasonable way to proceed.

It does contrast with the position which has been taken by those opposite on this matter. When we went into the last election, what was the commitment of those opposite? The first thing you look at to see whether a government has had a serious, systemic commitment to making bonus payments to either carers or pensioners is one document: it is called the budget papers. Within the budget papers, you go to the forward estimates and the relevant subprogram entry. What do you find there? You find no commitment at all on the part of our predecessors—none whatsoever. So there has been no long-term commitment by those opposite to these bonus payments in past. That is simply a fact. The fact is reflected in the actual construction of the budget papers.

I then go to the next point, dealing with this in the election context. Here I quote from the colourful document Better support for carers: “go for growth”. Flip over to page 6:

More Financial Support for Carers

This is not ripped out of context; it is in this section. Go to the relevant paragraph, neatly tucked up the end, because you usually tuck things up the end and hope no-one actually gets that far—the last sentence in the last paragraph on the page says:

A re-elected Coalition Government will consider continuing to pay these bonuses ...

That is the first qualifying clause. The second qualifying clause is:

... depending on the economic circumstances at the time.

There has been no firm commitment by those opposite at all—none whatsoever.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for North Sydney is warned!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is grossly misleading on the part of those opposite to put a view to carers and pensioners across the country that they were locked into doing this were they re-elected. It is untrue. It is demonstrated by the document to be untrue. It is there in black and white. Then we go to how these matters were treated by the previous government in previous years. Every budget night—and I have attended a few—when the member for Higgins would stand here and deliver the budget, you will see if you look at this statement that he said repeatedly, ‘Tonight I announce that.’ In terms of bonus payments for carers he said: ‘I announce that. I announce this one-off payment.’ It was the same in 2004, the same in 2005, and I have here for 2007 a one-off seniors bonus payment. These are one-off announcements. That is how you have described them each budget that you have done them. You have done them in four previous budgets in the case of the carer payment and in one previous budget when it comes to the $500 payment for pensioners. These are one-off statements, one-off announcements, and are described as such by the former Treasurer himself.

Where does the evidence leave us? The evidence leaves us as follows. First of all, there was nothing in the forward estimates on the part of those opposite, nothing whatsoever. Secondly, we have an explicit statement in the colourful document which says that they may consider this, depending on the state of the economy. Thirdly, when you look at the way in which this has been handled in previous years they are explicitly addressed as a series of one-off statements announced—repeat, announced—on the night. What you therefore have on the part of the government is something considerably in addition to what has been provided by those opposite.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Laming interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Bowman is warned!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in March; the budget is not due until May. The previous government’s practice, if we are applying the same standards, would be to shut up and say nothing until budget night in May. The Treasurer stood up in the past and said, ‘Here is the one-off announcement.’ What we are doing in March is standing up and providing this guarantee to carers and pensioners now. That represents a significant departure from previous practice. Of course, on top of that there are a range of other measures which we have embraced as well. They go to what we can do for utilities payments for carers and pensioners. We are committed to a $4.1 billion program that will benefit over three million Australians. This will go to 2.6 million aged income support recipients, 277,000 Commonwealth seniors health card holders, 700,000 disability support pensioners and 160,000 carer payment recipients. To over three million Australians there will be a $4.1 billion payment and in each case there will be a quarterly payment of $125 in a utilities allowance. This is of real and measurable benefit not just to pensioners but also to those who are providing services as carers and are recipients of the carer payments.

What we have, therefore, is not only a guarantee when it comes to these bonuses but also a guarantee from us when it comes to these utilities allowances: four by $125 in allowances. The reason we have done that is that the bills for electricity and rates and the rest come in regularly for people. This is not just an annual payment and not a biannual payment, because a lot of these bills come in quarterly. The reason we designed these payments on a quarterly basis was to ensure that carers and pensioners and others would have access to these payments to assist them as the bills rolled in the door. In fact, we were attacked for doing it on a quarterly basis, I seem to recall, by the former Treasurer, the current member for Higgins, who did not think it was the right way to go. Unlike our predecessors, who treated this as a budget night one-off announcement, you have from us in March, two months before the budget, a clear-cut guarantee. Beyond that you have a clear-cut guarantee on the question of utilities allowance payments, which go to more than three million Australians. Both of those measures are radically in excess of any such undertakings on the part of those opposite in the lead-up to the last election. Of course, the question which arises is: why are we having this debate in the first place, when it goes to the other part of the censure motion on the question of the economy?

The reason we are having a very difficult budget process at the moment is that we have been left with a very difficult economic challenge. I know that those opposite find it very difficult to confront some facts but I think it is important that they actually go one by one through the facts that present themselves to the nation right now in terms of the economy we have been left with.

Mr Hockey interjecting—

There is a suggestion by the Manager of Opposition Business that it is not relevant to the censure motion. The censure motion deals with the government’s management of the economy. I would suggest that the Manager of Opposition Business actually read the censure motion before he interjects to say that these remarks are somehow not relevant to the censure. They are. They are directly relevant to the censure. I read the censure motion when it was handed to me. Why are we having a difficult debate about budget priorities and about expenditure? We have inherited a very difficult set of economic circumstances from our predecessors and from the circumstances which now arise from the international economy. Fact No. 1: when our government was elected inflation was running at a 16-year high. It is now projected by the RBA to remain high until 2010. Is that incorrect?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my left will cease interjecting!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We inherited inflation running at a 16-year high. Is that incorrect? That is fact No. 1. There is no dispute from those opposite. Fact No. 2: when our government was elected, interest rates had risen 10 times in a row and were the second highest in the developed world. That is fact No. 2. Any dispute? Fact No. 3: productivity growth is running at its lowest level in 15 years and, as the Treasurer said in parliament today, it has now ground down to zero. That is fact No. 3.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I issue a general warning!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fact No. 4: since 2004-05 Commonwealth spending has grown at an average of around four per cent real per year, which is more rapid growth than in any other four-year period in the last decade and a half. If I recall the presentation in parliament the other day by the Minister for Finance, in the last financial year it was running at 4½ per cent real. That is simply unsustainable. That is fact No. 4. Fact No. 5: at the time of the election, despite the best terms of trade in 50 years, we had generated 5½ years of monthly trade deficits, the longest sequence in Australia’s economic history, contributing to Australia’s record foreign debt, which has tripled to a record at $570 billion. That is fact No. 5.

If you put all these things together, what you have is a clear-cut summary of the dimensions of the economic challenge that we on this side of the House, the government of the day, have been presented with in terms of the economic performance of those who preceded us. It is a very uncomfortable and confronting set of facts for those opposite as they realise that they actually left Australia with a series of far-reaching economic problems on the inflation front, on the interest rates front, on the productivity front and with government spending out of control. All these are problems which now confront us and actually require a course of action to deal with them rather than our pushing them all to one side. So framing a budget under these circumstances is difficult when combined with and compounded by the fact that the state of the global economy means that we have revised downwards growth projections for the United States economy, revised downwards growth projections for Europe and revised downwards, somewhat, projections for Japan. Therefore we have a difficult set of global economic circumstances and we have an economic legacy from those opposite, uncomfortable and disquieting as they may find it, which, frankly, registers as a fail mark against each of the five or six measures that I just ran through.

So when it comes to priorities our challenge is this: how do we manage to maintain responsible economic management, draw government expenditure back under control and eliminate unnecessary spending programs while at the same time making sure that we are extending the hand of support to those in the community who need it? Front and centre among those in the community who need support are carers and pensioners. They are among the most vulnerable. It has been interesting in this debate today to listen to the faux expressions of compassion by those opposite—a political party and a previous government which for 12 years did not lift a finger to address the five or six key economic facts and challenges that I ran through before and instead squandered their inheritance. On the compassion register, look at Work Choices, look at the impact on working families and look at the impact on those who are struggling to make the family budget balance at the end of each week. Instead, we had minister after minister standing at this dispatch box in the time of the previous government saying: ‘Not our problem. We’re not faintly concerned about the interests of working families.’ Beyond working families and beyond those who need a decent and fair industrial relations system, we go back to the core needs of those who are the most vulnerable in our community: carers and pensioners. I cannot think of a more clear-cut commitment than what we have given in terms of carers and pensioners for the future. We have a commitment that goes to them not being any worse off on the question of the bonus payments to carers and pensioners and we have that commitment when it comes to utilities, a commitment in both cases which precedes the budget by two months, transcending anything which was ever provided by those opposite in previous budgets.

I would suggest that those opposite take a long, cold, hard look at themselves against the record that they have left the government on the economy, given the documents I have referred to, specifically about the handling of this bonus matter in the time during which they occupied the treasury bench. What I fear is happening is this: our government is applying to us on this side of the House a standard which those opposite never applied to themselves when they were the government of this nation and in office for 12 years. The government rejects this censure motion. The core reason for doing so is that it is absolutely predicated on a false argument that pensioners and carers would be worse off as a consequence of this upcoming budget on the question of the bonus payments.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think any fair-minded Australian listening to the Prime Minister’s contribution to this censure debate would come to the sad conclusion that this government is suffering from compassion fatigue after just three months in office. Anyone who listened to the contribution of the Prime Minister, who now turns his back on the opposition—and on the carers of Australia, for whom the opposition is speaking—would conclude that, as far as this Prime Minister is concerned, it is all about the economy; it is not about people.

The Prime Minister and members opposite said that they have inherited a difficult situation. What is so difficult about a $20 billion-plus surplus? They have inherited a $20 billion-plus surplus and they will not commit to give any of it to the carers and pensioners of Australia by way of these lump sum payments. Shame on you, Prime Minister, shame on you, minister for families, and shame on you, Deputy Prime Minister, for abandoning and dumping the most vulnerable people in our society in this way. Let us make it absolutely crystal clear, to a Prime Minister and a minister who do not know, exactly what their policy is. This was stated in the Sydney Morning Herald last Friday:

The Federal Government faces criticism from carer groups after it decided not to match a $1600 bonus payment made to carers by the Howard government in recent years.

Listen to this, Prime Minister, and listen to this, minister for families:

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Families, Jenny Macklin, confirmed the decision last night, saying it was part of the Government’s plan to cut spending.

So dumping the carers lump sum payment and dumping the pensioners lump sum payment is ‘part of the government’s plan to cut spending’. This is about the bonus payment that the Howard government has paid for the last four years. Will it or will it not be paid this year?

Instead of guaranteeing that it will be paid, this Prime Minister is now trying to cook up some kind of a fix with the Leader of the House. I tell you what, Prime Minister: if you want to get out of this mess do not consult the Leader of the House, the author of the manic Fridays. This Prime Minister has refused to give a guarantee that the bonus payment will be made, saying instead that people will not be worse off. He said that this meant that they could all relax and be reassured. In other words, what he tried to do in response to the censure debate today was to give the guarantee that he had refused to give in question time through a series of tortuous evasions and circumlocutions and equivocations.

I will tell you what a guarantee would be. A guarantee would be a letter signed by the Prime Minister of this country saying to the carers and the pensioners of Australia: ‘Your bonus payments and your lump sum payments are safe and will be paid in this budget because the surplus will be bigger than ever, our economy is better than ever and you deserve a dividend this year from economic growth, as you have had in the last four years from the Howard government.’ Have the guts to sign a guarantee and then people will give you credit for at least having the heart to accept that you and your government have made a mistake over the last four or five years.

The cardboard Kev that appeared in this parliament on the last sitting Friday has more heart than this Prime Minister has shown in the course of question time and the censure debate today. Let us examine exactly what the Prime Minister has said. I quote from an AAP report yesterday:

Mr Rudd said Families and Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin was investigating how the system could be improved, saying one-off payments and bonuses were an inadequate way to deal with welfare on a long-term basis.

So there was the Prime Minister, who now says that the one-off lump sum payment and bonus is guaranteed for this budget, saying yesterday that it was inadequate. He went on to say yesterday:

The challenge that Jenny Macklin and others have been wrestling with is how do we put all this on to a more secure, predictable basis for carers and pensioners into the long-term future, rather than having to deal simply with a series of one-offs …

The carers and the pensioners of this country can be trusted with money. They can be trusted to know what to do with $1,600 or $500, and that is what they would prefer, as has been made abundantly clear over the last few days. But what we had in question time today was a Prime Minister who not only would not guarantee the lump sum payment but would not guarantee any alternative way of ensuring that these vulnerable people would not be worse off. He comes in here and he piously says to this chamber, ‘They will not be worse off by one dollar,’ but he refuses to describe a mechanism to ensure that that will be the case.

I say to the carers and the pensioners of Australia: these are weasel words that we have seen from this Prime Minister. You cannot trust this Prime Minister, and these bonuses will not be paid until we have a guarantee in writing, signed by this man, that they will be paid. Do you know what we have seen today? We have seen the Prime Minister reverting to type. Last year we saw caring Kevin, we saw pious Kevin, and we saw statesman Kevin.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Warringah will refer to the Prime Minister by his appropriate title.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will tell you what we have seen today from the Prime Minister. We have seen him reverting to type: a heartless bureaucrat who thinks that people are something to be the object of government policy. The carers of Australia are going to find out over the next few weeks precisely why this Prime Minister was called ‘Dr Death’ by the public servants of Queensland when they had to work with him, when they had to experience what the Prime Minister’s compassion was really like. What we have also seen today is a striking contrast between a heartless bureaucrat, who sees people as items to be moved around on a policy chessboard, and someone who has spent most of his adult life as a doctor in general practice, who understands that human beings are creatures of flesh and blood and they have to be dealt with with decency and compassion by governments.

I regret to say that this government, which was elected with so much hope by so many Australians—to the disappointment, admittedly, of people on this side of the House—is already dashing their hopes. It is one thing to sign up to Kyoto. It is one thing to apologise for the past. It is one thing to promise to change legislation. But it is quite another to consistently deliver decent benefits to the people of Australia.

The fact that members opposite think that it is more important to deliver the mother of all budget surpluses than it is to deliver benefits to the people of this country who need it most just goes to show the extent to which modern Labor has lost its soul. There are too many millionaires sitting opposite. There are too many people who spend their time talking to developers and the big end of town. That is the only possible explanation as to why this government has completely forgotten the most vulnerable people in our society, the carers and the pensioners who are doing it tough, who, but for government benefits, entirely miss out on the prosperity that this country has enjoyed in recent years and who deserve better from a government which calls itself a Labor government.

Because of this Prime Minister’s ineptitude, because he is unable to reconcile the conflicting demands of his hairy-chested economic ministers and his backbench—who understand, I suspect, just what this is going to do to the carers and pensioners of Australia—we have had five days of vacillation and muddle.

John Howard, the former Prime Minister, was never one to boast about his compassion credentials. He was never one to strike his chest and say, ‘Look how good I am.’ Unlike the current incumbent Prime Minister, he just delivered. That is what John Howard did: he delivered four years of lump sum payments to the carers and pensioners of this country. That is what he did: he delivered. He did not boast. What we have from this Prime Minister is a series of pious platitudes, a series of empty assurances not backed up by any specific assurances whatsoever.

What we have seen from members opposite, in the words of one of their former leaders, is ‘a circus of symbolism’. The first time they are actually put on the spot, the first time they actually have to come up with a hard commitment, the first time they are faced with a difficult choice, what do they do? They choose a bigger budget surplus over tangible, concrete benefits for the carers and pensioners of this country.

I am more confident than ever, having watched the stumbling, halting, embarrassed, shamefaced performance of the Prime Minister today—attested to by the shocked, white faces of the backbench behind him, who know he is getting himself into a hopeless muddle—that the longer this government lasts, the better the Howard government will look. The longer that members opposite take the $500, the $600 and the $1,000 lump sum payments away from vulnerable people, the more the Howard government years will look like a golden age of compassion and decency.

This Prime Minister is the person who opined at great and pious length in The Monthly magazine at the end of 2006 about how all John Howard was interested in was ‘me, myself and I’. I tell you what: John Howard delivered. John Howard gave the people of this country the support that they needed. This is the Prime Minister who attacked what he called ‘Howard’s Brutopia.’ Who is running a brutopia now? Is it a brutopia to pay people a $1,600 lump sum payment yet somehow a nirvana to take it away? There is something rotten in this government’s make-up if this Prime Minister cannot find it in his heart to give those decent, struggling carers and pensioners of this country the lump sum payments that they have been given over the last four budgets, which they have increasingly come to rely on and which they deserve as a dividend from the economic prosperity of our country.

In conclusion, the Leader of the Opposition had some very good advice for this L-plate Prime Minister: stop talking to the bureaucrats, stop cutting deals with the faction chiefs, stop trying to bail out the debt-ridden state governments at the expense of the carers and pensioners of this country. The Prime Minister said to his members: ‘Go visit a school. Go visit a homeless shelter.’ As the Leader of the Opposition has said: ‘Spend a bit of time with the carers of our country. Feel their pain; see their need.’ It does not stop; it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They deserve this payment and this payment should be paid. (Time expired)

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor do have a very clear understanding of the enormous contribution that carers make to the people whom they love. I know from my own family the enormous personal sacrifices that people make, and they do it because they love the people they care for. We also know that an enormous lifetime of contribution has been made by the senior members of this country. We recognise that, we respect that, and that is why we want to ensure that, as they grow older, they are both supported financially and provided with services. We know that for many carers the cost of the sacrifice they make is both deeply emotional and financial. It is a very tough task that so many people take on. They want to take it on because they care so much about the people whom they care for.

It is the case that so many carers in this country earn a lot less than other members of our community. In fact, one-third of primary carers are in households that rank in the poorest 20 per cent of households in Australia. We as a government do understand it; we understand it from our own families. Many of these people have significant additional costs, whether it is for that special medication, for the equipment they need to help care for their loved ones or for the additional transport costs they have in visits backwards and forwards from hospital. All of these issues do impose an extra financial burden on so many carers.

Also, for many carers there is often a very significant cost to their own family lives—for example, the pressure placed on other members of the family. One woman said to me that the hardest thing for her is not only having to care for the individual child whom she has to take on a regular basis to the hospital but recognising the impact of those many hospital visits on her other children, who often do not have their mother to care for them as much as other children have.

These are very significant issues that so many carers do face. They are enormous personal sacrifices and enormous financial sacrifices that each and every one of us understands very deeply. Right at our core we do have an unshakable belief, an unshakable principle, that all Australians should share in the economic prosperity that this country is experiencing. Labor thinks each and every person should share in that prosperity. That is why we are making changes to the utilities payment, and I will talk about that a little later.

The Prime Minister has said quite categorically that the reports in the media that pensioners and carers may be worse off are wrong. He has made it absolutely clear that those reports are wrong. He has also said that, when it comes to the bonuses that have been paid in the past, senior Australians and carers will not be worse off. That is a guarantee that the Prime Minister has given to senior Australians and carers. One of the things that the government is prepared to do, unlike the previous government, is to give some certainty past this budget to those carers and seniors. We want to give both of those groups greater security into the future. Rather than having to deal, as they did, with the previous government’s series of one-off payments, we are proposing to look for new ways to make sure that we can give both older Australians and carers greater certainty into the future. We know that this will provide them with a much greater sense of security than the previous government was ever prepared to do.

A few minutes ago the member for Warringah said that the previous Prime Minister, John Howard, had delivered. One thing the previous Prime Minister did not deliver was any sense of certainty into the future about these bonuses. We know that all the current opposition was prepared to do before each budget was to say, ‘We’ll give a one-off bonus.’ Before the last election, as the Prime Minister indicated in his earlier remarks, the opposition was not prepared to give any guarantee that it would pay this bonus if it won the election. It certainly gave no guarantee that it would pay the bonus or give any security into the future for seniors or carers. One thing that is very clear from the current opposition’s election statements and the state of the budget is that, when we look at the budget papers from last year, we see that this bonus payment was not on the books. If ever we needed any evidence whatsoever of its intentions, the previous government had no intention of paying this bonus in a secure way. It had no commitment whatsoever.

The previous government had no commitment to continuing these bonuses. The Leader of the Opposition and the member for Warringah have stood up in this place today and made an enormous amount of noise, but I think they should be honest with the carers they speak to individually and through this parliament. They made no commitment in the budget last year and in the lead-up to the election that they would pay these bonuses. There is no money in the budget for them. A little bit of honesty from the opposition would be welcomed by the carers they are speaking to. All they were prepared to do was offer short-term election year bonuses. They were not prepared to make an ongoing commitment to carers. They were not prepared to do so because they had no dedication to resolving the issue and giving people the security they deserve. Unfortunately, from the previous government there was a decision to deliver things on a one-off basis and not in a continuous way so as to give people security.

There is another area of hypocrisy from the opposition that is quite breathtaking. These are the same people—the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Warringah would have been in the cabinet when the decision was taken—who proposed taking the carer allowance away from nearly 30,000 parents of children with a disability. This is what the Canberra Times reported back in August 2003:

Nearly 30,000 families who care for children with disabilities are expected to lose their government carer allowance.

The article went on to say:

These figures show that almost 30,000 fewer families will receive the allowance this financial year.

That was a proposition from those in opposition now who are making the most extraordinary hypocritical statements in this debate. It got much worse in 2003 for these parents of severely disabled children. Following the outcry, the Age reported on 13 August:

Parents of more than 5,000 disabled children have lost their $87 fortnightly allowance under a Howard government review.

That is what the previous government were on about. There has been a lot of noise today and lots of suggestions that things were different, but, when you look at the record and at what the previous government were on about, you find that they were not about providing any certainty for the future or making sure that carers and seniors were able to cope with the significant financial pressures that they faced.

Unlike the opposition, the government is all about giving certainty to carers and seniors because we do not want to leave them hanging. We do not want to leave people hanging until budget night, year after year after year. That is the task that we have taken on, because it was never taken on by the previous government. There was no previous commitment in the budget to deliver these bonuses. There was no previous commitment given by the now opposition just before the election that they would pay these bonuses. The Prime Minister has made it absolutely plain that, as far as these bonuses are concerned, no carer and no senior will be worse off. He has also given a guarantee that we will give some security to these people so that they are not hanging out every budget night for information on whether or not the bonuses will be paid.

I want to also make a few remarks about the very important election commitments that we are about to deliver to over three million Australians—to seniors, carers and people with a disability—in increasing the utilities allowance from its current level of $107 to $500 a year, and we are going to pay it on a quarterly basis. We know just how important this is for those who are on the seniors concession allowance, so eligible self-funded retirees too will be getting the $500 utilities allowance and it will be paid quarterly to them. The opposition needs to make sure that there is no nonsense in the Senate when this issue is debated this week. The government wants to make sure that this utilities allowance is paid on 20 March as we promised. We promised that it would be paid on a quarterly basis and we promised that the first instalment would be paid on 20 March, and the only thing standing in the way of that promise is the federal opposition. We want to be able to give this additional help to senior Australians, to carers and to people with a disability, so I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to guarantee that there will not be any delays in the Senate while this issue is debated so that we can make sure that the seniors, carers and people with disabilities actually get what they need.

We hear from those opposite that they wanted to do this. They actually had 11 years to increase the utilities allowance. They had 11 years to make sure that the utilities allowance was available to carers. They had 11 years to make sure that the utilities allowance was available to people with a disability. Each and every one of us knows—but, more importantly, each and every senior Australian, each and every carer and each and every person with a disability in Australia knows—that that utilities allowance was, firstly, not increased to $500 by the previous government and, secondly, was not extended to carers or to people with a disability. This money is very important in helping people with the rising cost of living. The first instalment will be delivered on 20 March—next week—as long as the opposition make sure that it is quickly delivered through the Senate.

I did say at the outset that we understand the concerns of carers. We understand the very significant financial pressures they are under. We also understand the very significant financial pressures that senior Australians are under. That is why we have made sure—the Prime Minister has assured these most vulnerable members of our community—that, when it comes to these bonuses, they will not be one dollar worse off under the forthcoming budget. It is important that people are given that financial security, and this government will give it to them. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Dr Nelson’s) be agreed to.