Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not know why we should be so aghast and so appalled by this sort of tactic from this government, a government which is supposedly all care but no responsibility, no accountability and no transparency, a government which hopefully is in its dying days. You can almost hear the screech of their fingernails as they slide down the blackboard with this one. It is yet another attempt to avoid accountability and to avoid transparency, with the support of their brothers and sisters in arms, the Greens. It is exactly the same as their avoidance of accountability and transparency with the $900 cash splash under then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the supposed stimulus for the economy—fail—the supposed stimulus for jobs—fail. Just as with that cash splash, now we have no accountability, no transparency and no checks and balances.

As Senator Cormann said, there is no requirement for any documentation as to what mums and dads have done with his money. There is no requirement that it be spent on anything in particular, just a hope that it will be. It is not unlike the Home Insulation Program, for which there was a litany of failed checks and balances and a government which refused to make transparent written warnings it received about the risks of home insulation, a government which said that the Home Insulation Program was going to stimulate jobs, stimulate the economy and help the environment. We now know some years later that it did none of those. It cost jobs—