Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

What I recall about the brief discussion last night that preceded this one was really a rather hysterical contribution by the Greens and Senator Siewert in which the opposition was accused of having a ‘bleeding heart’. If having a bleeding heart means putting pensioners and patriots first and foremost, that is an accusation that we will have to accept, because it certainly appears that there is a problem with the Greens in putting the interests of our seniors and our veterans first.

Whilst there is an attempt to address their focus on ferns and frangipanis rather than pensioners and patriots, in this amendment the Greens have failed to articulate the cost of this. There is an inclination from me and from the opposition to support these amendments because they are very important issues and they should be looked at more thoroughly, but we cannot accept these amendments in the absence of competent financial modelling, because to do so would be economically irresponsible. We cannot support the proposed changes unless there is some financial modelling which can be provided to us. If you have any, Senator Siewert, that you would like to provide to us—or, indeed, if the government does—we are happy to consider them, but until we have financial modelling we cannot support this amendment.