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

Labor opposes this bill. This bill goes to indexation, to incomes stream review processes, to the ordinary wait periods and to family tax benefits. It is simply another example of this government being uncaring, this government having no understanding of what is important to ordinary families in this country and this government being completely out of touch with the battles that normal people have day in, day out to ensure that they can put food on the table and put clothes on their kids to send them off to school. This is a mean-spirited government. This is a government who does not care about the poor and disadvantaged in this country. This is a government who would give $50 billion in tax cuts to big businesses and at the same time support penalty rate cuts for 700,000 of the poorest workers in this country.

When Senator Brandis came in this morning, nobody had seen the bill. The bill had not been presented. There had been no discussions about the bill. A secret deal was done, and in they came to change the hours with no-one knowing what was in the bill. The first I saw of the bill was about 10 minutes ago, when I was handed the explanatory memorandum. This shows the lack of process and the contempt this government has not only for due process but also, more importantly, for families that are battling day in, day out to eke out a living in a time when living standards are declining, wages are being frozen and prices are going up. Yet this mob, they do not care.

And we had Senator Brandis saying this is an 'orderly dispatch of business'. Nobody puts this government and 'orderly' in the same sentence. They are anything but orderly. They have got no plan. They have got no strategy. They have got no economic credibility. Their only approach—and that is all it is, an ideological approach—is to attack the poorest in this country. Whether it is through the social security system, whether it is through the penalty rate system or whether it is through the industrial relations system: all they want to do is attack ordinary families in this country.

The most chilling aspect of the speeches we heard this morning was from Senator Cormann. Remember Senator Cormann after the 2014 budget that he was a key player in? Remember that budget that hammered pensioners, hammered welfare recipients? Remember that terrible budget that they have had to crab walk back day in, day out since it was introduced, the budget that gave us 'lifters and leaners'? If you were in a tough situation as an ordinary family and you required some welfare support, then you were a 'leaner'. But if you were former Treasurer Joe Hockey and you had to leave because you were so disgraced in terms of your budget, you end up—you are not a 'leaner', you are a 'lifter'. You get lifted off to Washington, to get about $400,000-plus a year in salary, plus a $150,000-plus pension. This guy had the cheek to call ordinary families 'leaners'. I know who was leaning: it was the economic team of the coalition.

Senator Cormann and Treasurer Hockey—remember the picture? Sitting there with their big Havana cigars, celebrating cutting key aspects of workers' security and social security? The big Havana cigars probably cost more than the $38 a day that someone on Newstart has to survive on. They were so happy, so proud, that they cracked out the Havana cigars to celebrate that 2014-15 budget. But what Senator Cormann said, the chilling part of what he said today is that there is 'more work to be done'. This is not the end of the attacks on poor people in this country. 'More work to be done'. I am not sure, as part of the secret deal with One Nation, Senator Xenophon, Senator Hinch and Senator Leyonhjelm, whether Senator Cormann told them what more work has to be done. What more cuts can we expect in the future? What more attacks on ordinary families are sitting behind this bill?

I can tell you: go back to the 2014-15 budget and look at the aspects of that and the attacks on pensioners. The changes to the indexation of pensioners would have left them $80 a week worse off over a 10-year period. That is why you crack out the Havana cigars: for attacking pensioners. They told young people with no capacity to find a job in areas where there is up to 20 per cent youth unemployment that they had to live with absolutely no income support for six months. What kind of mob is this sitting over there? This is what they really wanted to do. With Senator Cormann saying there is more work to be done, you can bet that all the nasties are waiting to come back in. They will cuddle up to One Nation, to Senator Xenophon, to Senator Hinch and they will work away to try to get the worst aspects of their attacks on working people implemented. Make no bones about: One Nation, Senator Xenophon, Senator Hinch and Senator Leyonhjelm are simply delivering for the Liberal and National parties. They are delivering all of the worst aspects of their budget approach.

And how dare Senator Xenophon try to stand up and be the pragmatic person of the people. Senator Xenophon has done more deals in here in this term of government than any other crossbencher. He makes the Democrats look like amateurs! This guy will always do the deal. He will always get this government out of trouble and put poor people in trouble. That is what Nick Xenophon is about. That is what his modus operandi is. I have never seen Senator Xenophon really act in the interests of working people. During the debates on industrial relations legislation, where did Senator Xenophon go? Straight to the Liberal Party, with a few amendments here and there to justify his capitulation on the protections for working people.

What about One Nation? Senator Hanson is out there telling everybody that she listens to the people, that she is there for the people. I have not seen her do one thing in this Senate that promotes decency or a decent social approach on any aspect of any bill that has come through this parliament. Senator Hanson is a reliable vote for the Liberals and the Nationals. She will deliver the cuts to welfare. She will deliver the attacks on penalty rates. She will deliver an uncaring attitude to the poor in this nation.

Senator Hanson is a fraud. Senator Xenophon is a fraud. If they were not frauds, they would be in here battling to support ordinary Australians against the attacks that this coalition government mounts on them day in day out. Whether it is welfare, industrial relations or penalty rates, the frauds of the Nick Xenophon Team and One Nation are over there cuddling up to the Liberal-National Party and delivering really bad outcomes for ordinary Australians in this country.

In the bill we have the freeze on indexation. What that really means is a cut; when you freeze indexation you actually cut back. We heard from the Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, who is quite diverted at the moment. He is packing his bags and looking for a job anywhere else but in the Senate. His colleagues do not want him here and big business do not want him here; they are prepared to send him overseas. He is talking about a $6.8 billion saving. Remember, that $6.8 billion comes out of support for the poorest people in this country. It is an absolute outrage; it is the poor people in this country that are being belted up. The more work that has to be done, as Senator Cormann has indicated, in my view means they will revisit their terrible 2014-15 budget and will continue to work to deliver all the attacks on the poor people of this country that it contained.

How can the National Party simply be capitulating to these attacks when, in many of their seats pensioners, welfare recipients and unemployed young people are the ones that are going to get hammered? Many of the seats in which workers are going to be hit hardest with cuts to penalty rates are National Party seats. For instance, in Page, retail is the second biggest industry and employs nearly 8,000 local workers. There are 12,200 in retail, food and accommodation, with 7,700 in retail and 4,498 in food and hospitality. Have you heard the local member for Page actually saying, 'Don't cut the penalty rates of tens of thousands of workers in regional Australia'? There has not been a word. The National Party, the sycophants that they are, talk big when they get out in the bush and are lambs when they come in here. They are simply capitulating to the Liberal Party on all these attacks on ordinary families and workers in their seats.

There are nearly 12,000 workers affected in the Liberal seat of Gilmore. There are nearly 7,000 in retail, which is the second biggest employer in Gilmore. There are over 5,000 workers in other areas that are affected by penalty rate cuts. What did the local member, Ann Sudmalis, say about it? She said it was 'a gift'. She said it was not cutting wages but opening the door for more hours of employment. In a regional area like Gilmore, with almost double the national youth unemployment, she said it is a gift. She said it is a gift for our young people to get a foot in the door of employment.

That is the stupidity of the coalition. They think that by cutting the wages of the poorest paid workers in our country, on base annual salaries of $35,000, who depend on their penalty rates on the weekend, they will actually lift their standard of living to a reasonable standard—not even a good one, just a reasonable one. The workers will get a $4,000 cut if their penalty rates go, and there is not a word from rural and regional MPs in the coalition. There is not one word, except to defend the cuts to penalty rates because they have a pathological opposition to workers getting access to penalty rates, decent collective bargaining and decent health and safety on the job through access to their unions. They have got a pathological hatred for the trade union movement. If the trade union movement cannot deliver on wages and conditions in this country, you should understand that minimum rates will never rise and we will end up like the US with no decent welfare system, with no decent underpinning for rates of pay and conditions, and with retail workers having to depend on tips to bring home a decent wage.

That is the type of society that this mob want and that is the type of society that they are delivering day in day out, supported by Pauline Hanson's One Nation, supported by Nick Xenophon and his team and supported by Derryn Hinch. Derryn Hinch—give us a break—is the guy who used to go: 'Shame, shame, shame!' Well, shame, shame, shame on Derryn Hinch because he has never voted for working people on one decent issue in this parliament since he has been here. He is an absolute captive of the coalition.

This is a government in absolute chaos and crisis. We have got a Prime Minister who does not have the confidence of his party and does not have the confidence of the nation. He promised so much and has delivered so little. Prime Minister Turnbull is the biggest disappointment as Prime Minister that anyone has ever seen in this country. He has capitulated to the right wing of the Liberal Party. Tony Abbott is still calling the shots.

Prime Minister Turnbull is the weakest, jelly-backed Prime Minister ever. He cannot concentrate on any economic way forward. What has he done? He wanted a capital gains tax. How long did that last? A few weeks. Then he wanted to give powers back to the states. I think that lasted 48 hours. Now he has this idea that they will let people access their superannuation to buy a house. That will simply drive house prices up and will mean that workers will have no decent retirement. The guy is a fraud. The guy is hopeless. The Prime Minister of this country has no standing and this bill is an absolutely disgusting attack on the poorest people in this country.

The National Party sit there—the sycophants that they are, the weak people that they are and the unhelpful people for their own electorate that they are—and give in every time. The National Party are a disgrace. They should be on this side opposing these cuts to their electorates.