Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

You do not fix the budget by starving Australians. You do not fix the budget by making Australians survive without any income for six months. I just do not understand.

I think there are some people of goodwill in the coalition; there are some people of goodwill. I just wonder whether they will look at this legislation and take the same view as the experts in unemployment, the people who study this for a living, the academics who look at this and say, 'This is crazy; these penal provisions do not work.' Will they support the reality of this academic analysis? Will they support St Vincent de Paul, The Smith Family, the welfare rights groups? Or will they simply say, 'You get people back to work by starving them into a job'? I hope that is not the case, but I am afraid we have not seen much sign that the coalition can be trusted, that they will deal with anyone fairly and that they will not take an ideological approach to what they are doing.

At the estimates hearings, I asked questions of the Department of Human Services. I live out in the lower Blue Mountains, near Penrith. There are many unemployed people in Penrith. There are many families doing it tough not only in Penrith but in the western suburbs generally. Where are the bulk of the unemployed in my state of New South Wales? They are in the outer suburbs and they are in rural and regional Australia. And what does this bill do for the residents of Western Sydney and the residents of rural and regional Australia who happen to be unemployed? It says to them, 'Unless you "earn or learn"'—another slogan, another ideological beat-up—'you will have no income for six months.' Where is there a place for this type of ideology in a modern economy? Where is there any place for this in a society that has some compassion and caring for our fellow Australians?

There is no compassion and no caring from this rabble of a government over there—no compassion and no caring from this mob over there. They do not care about the unemployed. As long as the people who sit in their Bentleys handing over the brown paper bags of money in the front seat of the Bentley to Liberal politicians get looked after, they do not care about anybody else. They do not care about anybody else. And the National Party?

Government senators interjecting—

Give us a break! The National Party have got electorates where there is massive unemployment, massive youth unemployment. But what do the doormats of the coalition do? They sit quietly and do nothing. They allow the coalition to rip away at the hospital system in rural and regional Australia. They allow them to rip away at the education system in rural and regional Australia. No wonder the National Party are described as doormats. When I first came here I said, 'No, the National Party can't be doormats!' But I was here a couple of days and I knew the National Party were the doormats of the coalition—the absolute doormats! But under that doormat you now find the South Australian senators. They are even worse than a doormat. Lift that doormat up and out scuttle the South Australian senators! It is pretty awful, I have got to tell you. But National Party senators, do not feel too bad. Senator Edwards will scuttle out from under that doormat and you will know that he is even more jelly-backed than you lot in the National Party!

We can joke about it all we like, but this is a very serious issue. All of the welfare groups that have looked at this piece of legislation have said it is unfair, it is not acceptable, it is going to make the poorest people in this country pay a price.

Senator Seselja interjecting—

Senator Seselja is yap, yap, yapping away in the background. Senator Seselja will not stand up for public servants in Canberra. He has absolutely no capacity to look after any of his electorate. Senator Seselja, when they scuttle out from under the doormat, I will bet you are one of them!