Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Palmer United Party) Share this | Hansard source

for the Australian public that we will no longer care for our most vulnerable. As that famous Indian pacifist Gandhi said:

The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.

How would our society measure up, should these measures pass?

One of the budget measures under these bills is to force anyone under 30 years of age to wait six months before they can get paid a benefit. The unemployed are expected somehow—somehow!— to live for six months without housing, without food, without any money at all for transport. I would like to put every politician to that test. How will they look for work? They can't; they won't. They will be forced onto the streets and many could be forced to turn to crime just to feed themselves. How does this government expect they will be able to look for work when they have no means to eat, let alone get transport to job interviews?

This government does nothing to create jobs in high unemployment areas like Tasmania. Its only response is to propose budget measures that will make the poor poorer under harsh and cruel measures that will see them homeless and desperate. This government went to the election promising pensioners they would not lose a cent, but now it has put in measures that would see pensioners lose money, perhaps not right now but certainly into the future. Do you think pensioners would have supported this government if you had told them the truth? I very much doubt it. Do you think you would have been supported by the wider community if Australians knew what the coalition was really planning to do? I doubt it. This government lacks legitimacy. It is illegitimate because it misled the voters of Australia and lied its way to an election victory—it lied its way all the way.

These bills before the Senate today are evidence of this government's stinking deception and it has gotten away with this great deception and taken the keys to the Treasury benches. Does this Liberal government now expects us to endorse and approve of its bad behaviour by voting for its legislation? To rub salt into the wound, this government has presented before this chamber plans to rip money off our veterans by freezing their entitlement indexations. Even our disabled veterans will lose money because this government intends to rip as much as 12 weeks' pay off them. Shame on you! That sound you hear, Mr Acting Deputy President, is the earth moving as those who have died defending and in the service of our nation have rolled in their graves. Shame on this government and shame on those opposite who propose to vote for these cruel mean measures!

It is time that politicians, who like to make grand stirring speeches on ANZAC day and pose for photo opportunities with members of the Army, Navy and Air Force, live up to the ANZAC legend and not off it. The Palmer United Party fully opposes this Liberal government's legislation.