Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Once again I should say how wonderful it is that the coalition have discovered that there are people in their electorates who are finding it very difficult to make ends meet. I should remind coalition senators that a central plank of the Labor campaign in the last election was that the Howard government at that time were just simply not aware of the difficulties people were having in making ends meet—that people were doing it tough and that prices were rising.

We campaigned on the idea that the Howard government was out of touch, that they did not recognise that fundamental fact, and I think the election result showed that the Australian people agreed with us that the Howard government was out of touch and was not aware of what was going on around the kitchen table. And now, having been in opposition for a few months, the coalition are starting to become aware that that was one of the root causes of their downfall. I presume they are trying to rectify that position by calling for this $30 a week pension rise, ignoring the very complexities of existence for pensioners who, if they got a rise in their base pension, would have all kinds of difficulties and might not get the full benefit of that pension because of rate rises in the housing commission properties or whatever.

We have seen the coalition do their usual knee-jerk reaction and propose something without thinking through the consequences, without thinking about how that is really going to be implemented in the real world, because they are still not really part of the real world. They just want to put forward a stunt that sounds good, that will make them look good and that may cause that tiny increase in the polls they so much need at the moment. They accuse the Rudd government of being poll driven and yet they pull a stunt like this, the $30 a week, which we have yet to see in this chamber or the other chamber. It was an ill-thought-out stunt that was not possible to do in the other place, so now they have proposed to bring in a bill in the Senate but have not yet been able to do it and have not shown the kind of follow-through that the stunt really does not deserve in the first place.

Senator Coonan came into this place and accused the Rudd government of being a do-nothing government, which is breathtaking. It is really hard to sit here and hear this when the coalition was in government for nearly 12 years and did nothing about the base rates of pensions. The Rudd government has been in power for less than a year and they ask the Rudd government, before a proper policy and implementation review is finished, to rush in and do something which may have unintended consequences. The fundamental fact arising out of this is that in order to bring about any kind of increase for pensioners the Rudd government needs the budget to do it. One by one, members of the coalition have voted against the very budget measures that would give us the kind of surplus that would allow us to do something significant for pensioners and they have refused to budge from that position. They have refused to acknowledge the irresponsibility of their actions in voting against those budget measures. You cannot call on the Rudd government to spend large amounts—millions and billions of dollars—if you do not give the government the revenue capacity to implement that.

In this chamber, time after time, day after day, we see the coalition voting against the very measures that would enable the Rudd government to give a substantial increase in pensions which is needed not only for single age pensioners but also for a range of other people on government allowances and benefits. We are looking across the sector to implement something that will have a long-lasting, long-term, good result which will be effective and important for pensioners. (Time expired)