Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I heard a media report today that electronic voting is on its way to the House in the 2019. While Labor is not opposed to the concept of electronic voting, you have to ask yourself the question: why is this Prime Minister and those opposite who from time to time don't even turn up to work, like Senator Cash today, would want to spend millions of dollars on a system that will save less than eight minutes a day. The hypocrisy of this out-of-touch government never ceases to amaze me. Just last week during an MPI, no members of the executive even bothered to enter the chamber. Now we have the Prime Minister persisting with this vanity project costing millions and millions of dollars, while he is cutting school funding, cutting hospital funding and persisting with attacks on seniors and pensioners.

The Leader of the House says it will 'free up more time for important parliamentary business'. What is more important than presenting in the people's House, representing our community and voting on legislation? I ask: where is the cost-benefit analysis for electronic voting? I ask: why is the Prime Minister asking seniors to work till they are 70 when it appears that he and his ministers don't even want to turn up to work? Prime Minister: why can you find millions and millions of dollars so your ministers can take it easy, while cutting funding for schools, hospitals and pensioners?