Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Moore, I move:

That the Senate notes that the Abbott Government ' s 2015 budget locks in cuts to health and education and delivers higher spending, taxes, deficits and unemployment.

I rise today to make comments in relation to the insulting language directed towards new Australian mothers unveiled in the latest Abbott-Hockey budget and to detail this government's continued indifference to the aged-care portfolio. Last year the government divided the Australian public into 'lifters' and 'leaners'; and now the government has finetuned and redirected its cannon, placing Australian mothers in the firing line and labelling them as 'fraudsters', 'rorters' and 'double dippers'. We have a Prime Minister who is known as a two-timer; and only an Abbott government and a predominantly male ministry would use these words to describe Australian mothers.

It was the Abbott government who wanted to introduce a gold-plated paid parental leave scheme that would have seen families and mothers get $75,000 to have a baby. True to form, the Abbott government has done another backflip and wants to rip away $967.7 million of paid parental leave, which will leave about 80,000 mothers worse off. Labor's paid parental leave scheme was designed so that paid parental leave would be topped up by employers who wanted to add to the government scheme. This is not 'double-dipping'. Employer contributions allow women to spend more time with their babies and families. Both the Productivity Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman agree that employer contributions are an important part of paid parental leave; and now the Abbott government wants to rip this way. This is an extraordinary and intensive attack on ordinary hardworking Australian families and women who receive top-ups from their employer to help them spend more time with their newborn babies.

We have all seen this evidence of the foot-in-mouth disease that Mr Abbott is well known for not only nationally but internationally; and it seems that this disease has transferred to the Minister for Social Services, who referred to these mothers as 'rorters', when all they wanted to do was to be able to spend some extra quality time with their newborn babies. These are the critical first months of an infant's life. We mothers all know how extraordinarily important this is. What is worse, Mr Abbott has defended his minister's extraordinary attacks on Australian families and Australian mothers. And we have heard the same thing in this chamber this afternoon. I am amazed that the women on the government side of the chamber would defend these unprecedented attacks on Australian women. It is disgraceful. You really do have to wonder how low this Liberal government can go. The government's audacity in attacking young mothers by calling them double dippers and rorters underpins that we have a government that is arrogant and out of touch with young mothers and young families in this country. They are so out of touch with our modern Australian society. And to add insult to injury, the government is led by a Prime Minister who has also assumed the role of Minister for Women. I think the truth is that this Prime Minister is a double-crosser. Not only has he doublecrossed young mothers in this country; he needs to apologise for the assault on them by his government and his ministers. It is disgraceful.

Under the pressure of last year's failed budget, the Abbott government has shown its true colours once again and reiterated the fact that the Abbott government does not value Australian families. The Prime Minister's credibility with Australian families is rapidly fading. A budget for families has not been produced; it is smothered in savage cuts not only to paid parental leave but also to family payments. How can Mr Abbott be believed by any Australian family ever again? We already know that the pensioners of this country cannot trust Tony Abbott. We already know that the Australian people cannot trust him to keep any of his commitments because, as we all recall, he said there would be no cuts to health and we have seen cuts to health. He said there would be no cuts to education and we have seen cuts to education. He said there would be no change to the pension and then denied the change in indexation for Australian pensioners was a cut. When the indexation is lower then that is a cut. That cut had an effect on the aged care sector as well.

Tony Abbott promised that his budget would not be at the expense of the Australian families budget. He has again broken that promise. We have seen in this federal budget that Mr Abbott has kept the severe cuts to the families budget that were announced last year. These cuts will have a serious impact on low- and middle-income families. These families will be $6,000 a year worse off. Labor will in no way support these cuts. Labor will continue to oppose these cuts every day in this Senate chamber, as we did for the 12 months between the last budget and this one. We have finally shamed the government into putting away cuts to the Australian pensioners. They have shelved them but I think they are really just in the bottom drawer—we know that we cannot trust those on the other side of this chamber. You cannot rip money away from families one day and then say you care about helping them with the cost of raising their children the next.

Labor will fight Mr Abbott and we will fight Mr Morrison, whether he is Treasurer or whatever portfolio he has, even if he ends up being the Prime Minister of this country. We will fight in this chamber to protect Australian families and we will fight to protect those that are most vulnerable in this country. Australians are represented by a bunch of fake fixers. Australian families deserve better from this government. What needs to be fixed is the state of the nation that unfortunately the Prime Minister has now created. We have a Prime Minister who is quite frankly unfit to hold that office. The budget has again this year failed the fairness test and the fundamental unfairness of last year's budget disaster still remains. Labor stands with Australian families. We do not want to see these shameful cuts that will hurt millions of families right across this country.

It is not just families and mothers that this government has forgotten in this year's budget. It has also forgotten older Australians. I ask myself, why doesn't this government like old people? Why doesn't this government support people with dementia? Why doesn't this government support those that have chronic health issues, those that are homeless and those that are on the pension? These are the most vulnerable people in this country and these are the people that this government has abandoned yet again in their second budget.

Labor will always support senior and vulnerable Australians. However, the government's second budget ignores the future of older Australians and has not delivered any security or any certainty when it comes to aged care. Mr Hockey's underwhelming Intergenerational report highlighted that Australia is ageing and that this will significantly impact on the nation's economy and our society in general. Labor is committed to addressing the issues facing Australians as they age. We have already done the heavy lifting to ensure sustainability of the system, and aged care should be absolutely immune from this savage budget. In reality the Abbott government's second budget is set to make it even more difficult for the aged care sector when recruiting staff. This is at a time when the sector needs to increase its workforce to meet the demand of our ageing population. Today in question time we had the minister for aged care in here talking about some of the things that the government has done in aged care. But he would not address the issue that they have had two years and two budgets and they have done nothing at all to ensure that we are ready with trained, skilled-up and available people to go and work in the aged care sector. They have failed again. In fact they have cut $40.2 million that should have been there to ensure that those who are currently working in the sector are skilled up and trained. As we know, we are an ageing population and the complexity of ageing is increasing but this government has failed older Australians. They have failed them and they should be condemned. The budget was brought down on Tuesday night and we have already had people from the aged care sector in our offices telling us how disappointed they are that there has been nothing at all in this budget to help, to encourage and to ensure that we have a ready workforce as we move forward. The minister came into this chamber on 26 June to cut the severe behaviour supplement for people with dementia, and we know that the government cut the supplement without any consultation whatsoever with the sector.