Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Wong, I would like you to go back to South Australia and explain to the DFRDB men and women why you opposed fair indexation. I hope members from South Aust­ralia were listening to your comment. I am sure that you will be reminded on many occasions of your comment in relation to this matter.

As we have discussed before, Senator Wong's, in my view, cute defence—although 'cute' is too tawdry a word—in relation to costings, with carefully selected quotations from the AGS, is absolutely appalling. You and I know, Minister, that there are savings that were identified by the coalition which—surprise, surprise!— the government took up in the budget. So, having accused us of not having any offsets, you actually stole the offsets that we had identified. 'Oh, no, they're not there!' the minister said. 'Oh, no, they're not there!' other ministers said. Well, they were there, and they were identified. They were identified by the government itself in the budget and you lifted exactly what we were talking about.

I am not suggesting that that was inappropriate, clearly, because we had suggested it ourselves. What I am saying is that you actually have taken the money that we used as offsets and put it somewhere else—not to support these people, these superannuants. You have taken it elsewhere. Why should they cop that? Why should they cop you taking our savings and putting them elsewhere? The fact is there is absolutely no reason why they should cop it at all, and everyone in this chamber knows that.

I am very interested in hearing what the Leader of the Greens will say today, because he and I know that his office has sent out emails to people who will be positively impacted by this change. I will read the email from Senator Brown's office: 'The Australian Greens support the full indexation of pensions for all Commonwealth employees, including defence force personnel.' That was sent by John Dodd, from the office of Senator Brown. So, Senator Brown, I have a challenge for you today. Are you prepared to stick to what you said or will you sell these superannuants down the drain as well? Are you prepared to follow on the back of that email from your office to a superannuant? I have the email. If you do not believe me I will table it, but I think you know full well that that is exactly what you said.

Senator Brown, you and I know that the Australian Greens—along with the govern­ment and the Independents—are obligated to support this bill. You will stand condemned if you go back on your own words in relation to this matter. It is there for all to see. You have made it quite clear. You have an opportunity this morning to put into practice what you have written. I trust that you will do so because, as I said, you will stand utterly condemned if you do not take the opportunity to confirm what you said you believed in this email. I do not know what Senator Xenophon is doing with this bill, but I make this plea to him: take this opportunity to protect the notion of the uniqueness of military service today. He has the oppor­tunity to send out a very clear message that he and this chamber are not prepared to tolerate an intolerable situation, that he is prepared to stand up and say: 'How can someone in their position be treated differently from someone on an aged pension? How can that possibly be?' Senator Xenophon should look again at this matter. As a man who does believe in fairness and equity—I think he has espoused that before—he should ask himself, 'How can I possibly not support this bill?'

As I said earlier, these amendments enable amendment (5), which deals with schedule 2, to include the DFRB. I urge the chamber to ensure that these men and women are treated fairly.