Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Let us make no mistake here—Labor is helping the government ram through measures that will have impacts on families, people with disabilities, single parents and students. That is what the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (2014 Budget Measures No. 6) Bill does. We are firmly on record that we did not support the provisions of the other two social services bills, but Labor combined with the government to ram them through. They were not subjected to the full debate that they should have been subjected to, and Labor have now combined with the government to try to push these measure through on the last day of sitting before we have a two-week break.

These measures are opposed by many people in the community. I want to take a moment to reflect on the context in which these budget measures were brought forward in the first place. They were brought forward in two bills that had the cruellest of the government's budget measures in them, which impacted across the community—on young people, families, people with disabilities, carers, single parents—