Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Families, Community Services, Indigenous Affairs and Disability Reform. Will the minister update the House on how the government's policy agenda will build a fairer future for families. And when it comes to policies, what is the choice facing Australian families?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Disability Reform) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for McEwen very much for that question. He represents an electorate with a very large number of growing families, and he represents them very well. I think he would know that this Australian government has been delivering paid parental leave to many people in his electorate, and, of course, to 280,000 families right across this country.

He would also know—and this would be benefitting many families in his electorate, as well—that this government has delivered the schoolkids bonus to more than one million Australian families. So families in McEwen know that this side of the House will deliver for them. We will be there to support them. They also know that they cannot trust those opposite. They cannot trust what they say.

Yesterday in the parliament we saw both the Liberal Party and the Nationals supporting the government's decision to abolish the baby bonus. We appreciate their support, and we understand that they also voted to support the additional measures that we are putting in place so that families with a new-born baby get some extra help when that baby comes along. But, of course, this decision came after the Leader of the Opposition said, just a week or so ago, that he did not like this measure; and after the member for North Sydney said that they would vote against the extra support for lower- and middle-income families; and after the shadow Treasurer said, in response to another change that they supported last night, that that was just like the one-child policy in China. And the member for Menzies added to all of this, when he came to the dispatch box a few weeks ago talking about that government's changes, that the opposition would be opposing them.

So Australian families are completely confused about what those opposite intend to do. And the same applies to this Leader of the Opposition's rolled-gold policy on paid parental need. We have had so many members opposite coming out and saying that they oppose it. The member for Gippsland knows that it is an unfair policy. Of course, the member for Mitchell has been out there saying that it does not pass the fair-go test. The member for Moore and Senator Joyce, of course, do not agree with it, either.

More recently we saw that the member for Tangney did not agree with it. Just yesterday one of the Nationals said that he does not even think it will ever happen. Senator Williams said yesterday, 'We will just see, in three years time, what happens.' (Time expired)