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

Whilst the opposition will not insist upon the amendments that have been rejected by the House, there are a few interesting points that I think we need to make. First of all, the opposition is pleased that we have stood up and advocated for maintaining entitlements for the people who would have been affected by this Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (2008 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2008. Parts of this bill make additional entitlements available by correcting an oversight and an unintended consequence, but basically the remainder of the bill strips away benefits for people who have come to rely on them. We have made these points and we have debated them extensively in committee. In putting forward the opposition’s position, we believe that the amendments that we originally made are truly very significant. We believe that they are important and we believe that this is penny pinching by the government.

What do I mean by that? In the other place the talk was about how the seniors health card list had been cleansed by the previous government. Yes, it was cleansed; we went through it, reviewed it and reformed it. But the difficulty we have with this legislation is the fact that requiring tax file numbers is really a way of slowly introducing other income measures that will affect peoples’ entitlements—entitlements that they have come to rely on quite frankly, entitlements that they were not told they were going to lose before the election by an opposition that became the government through its sneakiness.

The other thing we have to point out is that the other part of the amendment that we introduced, which was going to affect partner service pensions, was going to have a total revenue cost of around $20 million. This government has stripped $20 million from about 930 people who have come to rely on it. That $20 million is being stripped by a government that has spent $167 million in marginal electorates on pork barrelling through sport and recreational facilities. It is a shame. They are taking $20 million from one end and adding $167 million of unaccountable projects and shameless pork barrelling at the other, of which they are unable to even provide a list. This is a government with its priorities all wrong. It is a government that has been sneaky. It has betrayed the Australian people.

In reading some of the debate in the House, I noticed that the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs talked about how he publicised the changes to the partner service pension. The problem with that is it is so disingenuous because he publicised it after the election. He claims that putting out a press release prior to the budget is publicising it and being open and accountable to the Australian people. It is simply not being open and accountable. They went to an election without telling people about their sneaky tests to remove entitlements—hard-won entitlements, entitlements that people deserve. This is a government that is clearly making policy on the run. It has not completely shared with the Australian people its agenda of ripping and stripping away entitlements to hurt those that are vulnerable.

We are interested in ensuring that the unintended consequences of legislation relating to fringe benefits entitlements for lower paid workers and community organisations are removed and we want to support the amendments that are there so that people are not disadvantaged any more than they have to be. Quite frankly, we would prefer our amendments (4) and (5) to be retained, but we are not going to stand on that because we do not want to delay this legislation any further. But we are very, very concerned about it. I think that is on the record now.

We will continue to advocate so that people will not be disadvantaged by this government’s sneakiness They are clearly not interested in honouring their commitments given in the election campaign, because they are introducing measures that were not election commitments. The only commitments they made during the election campaign that they seem to be honouring are those that revolve around their pork barrelling and their purchase, for want of another word, of marginal seats, where they have gone and made enormous promises, promises that they are not disclosing to the Senate, promises they boast about internally and promises that will ultimately embarrass this government enormously. In the largest pork barrel the country has ever seen, they have rolled out hundreds of millions of dollars to try and purchase an election. They are now stripping away entitlements that people have come to rely on. Whilst the opposition will let this legislation go through because we want to ensure that the unintended consequences of the previous bill do not disadvantage people, we mark our considered opposition to the stripping away of entitlements for both seniors and veterans. Accordingly, we will support the bill as amended.