Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Tuesday, we saw how this Prime Minister really looks at the world. He said that if a 60-year-old aged-care worker was wondering why she only gets $10 a week from this government, while an investment banker on $1 million gets $7,000, she should just get a better job. That's what he said. That's easy for him to say. Then again, everything has been easy for this Prime Minister. He's never seen the wrong side of disadvantage. He doesn't need Medicare, and that's why he's cutting money from public health. He won't ever need the pension, and that's why he's cutting the energy supplement for pensioners. He's never relied on penalty rates, and that's why we're going to see cuts to penalty rates on 1 July.

Now he's teaming up with Senator Hanson to rob taxpayers and give investment bankers like him $7,000 tax cuts. That's what he's doing. He doesn't get it. He'll never get it. He's got more shares than anyone in the parliament, but he doesn't share the values of the Australian people. He was born out of touch, he's lived his life out of touch and he will always be out of touch. To all of those Australians who are working hard every day, who are putting in to help the vulnerable, you don't need some corporate spiv telling you to get a better job. You deserve a pay rise, you deserve a bigger tax cut and you deserve a better government.