Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot believe it has boomeranged already! Here we are again—this government is going to put more cuts before the parliament. How many times does this parliament have to reject their cuts to family tax benefits A and B? Let's just be clear about how many families in regional Australia this government is seeking to hurt by continuing to put these cuts before this House. In regard to both part A and part B, there are 20,000 in my electorate. There are about 20,000 in Murray, the seat to the north, and about 20,000 in Mallee, the seat to the west. In the member for Wannon's electorate it is even more than 20,000. Yet these people in this place—the National Party, the Country Liberal MPs—continue to vote for them, and you can bet that when this bill comes for a vote next year these MPs will do the same. So why don't they go home this Christmas and be honest with their voters and tell them the truth? What they want to give them this Christmas is a cut to family tax benefits A and B. Then next Christmas these families will be worse off because not only have they had their family tax benefit cut; they also want to whack them with a GST. They want to broaden out the base of the GST to 15 per cent. This government is just rotten to the core when it comes to standing up for low-paid families, boomeranging bad policy again and again. How many times do we have to vote it down before that they get the message? (Time expired)