Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

  Like most MPs, I have talked now to literally hundreds of people in my electorate about the budget. I have had a range of reactions but one of the very common reactions is that people are confounded and confused about why a government would hand down a budget that takes so much from the people in our community who have so little. Why would the government hand down a budget that attacks right at heart of some of the foundation institutions of our country like Medicare? Why would the government hand down a budget that is going to see young people in this country face incredibly large barriers to get tertiary education? What I am starting to realise is that Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott, the people who created the backbone of this budget, just do not get it. Their lives are so divorced from the experiences of ordinary Australians and the experiences of people who live in my electorate of Hotham.

Let us take a look at some of the numbers.    Eighty-two per cent of those in cabinet have a private school education. In my electorate of Hotham, just 14 per cent of kids go to a private school. Most of these cabinet ministers went to university either for free or heavily subsidised under a very generous HECS system. These same people are making decisions that will see students in my electorate stare down the barrel of $80,000 for a nursing degree and that does not even account for the interest that will go on top of that upfront fee. Look at the income of these cabinet ministers: $7,000 a week. The median income of a person in Hotham is about $500 a week. So for every dollar that is earned by a person in Hotham, $14 is earned by one of the cabinet ministers.

We are learning a little more every day about the Treasurer of this country and where his values come from. Many of you would have seen him on Q&A. The Treasurer was asked: 'How is it that you maintain a link with ordinary Australians? How do you maintain an understanding of what life is like for ordinary Australians?' Most of us in this parliament do not live an ordinary life and we need to accept that. He told the story about his family. It was a rags to riches tale and it is one that I admire about him. His family came to Australia with very little and used it to make their way in this country. The important thing here is not to attack what happened to Joe Hockey, and I accept that the Treasurer has a good story to tell; it is simply to point out that all we know are our own experiences. As members of parliament, one thing we must do is to try to make a way to understand the lives of ordinary people and not just draw from our own experiences.

When I think about the story that the Treasurer told, it explains to me how he could be so incredulous that some Australians would baulk at paying $7 to go to the doctor. He defines $7 as just two middies. I could not think of a more offensive analogy. For some people that $7 will mean the decision between going to the doctor and not going to the doctor. (Time expired)