Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer rule out limiting the annual carer supplement to only one payment per carer, as recommended in the government's Commission of Audit?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are not going to go down the path of ruling in or ruling out initiatives in the lead-up to the next budget. This is a long, worn old path, including by us in opposition, I might say. We tried that—the problem we found was that we were always right, unlike the Labor Party, which, so far, is proving absolutely wrong. Of course, when it comes to welfare and caring about people, I really hope that the honourable member has already spoken to the Leader of the Opposition about that cut to single mothers initiated by the Leader of the Opposition—67,000 single mothers taken off the single mothers pension and put onto Newstart, and it was initiated by the Leader of the Opposition. I would suggest to the honourable member that she start a conversation with her own leader rather than asking us questions that certainly have no foundation.