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

So if looking after poor people in this country is being a class warrior, I am in it. I will be in it every day, because I do not want this country to end up like the United States. I do not want this country to end up where retail workers have to depend on tips to actually make a decent living in this country. That is unacceptable, because this country was built on egalitarianism. It was built on decency. It had a worldwide reputation for being a country that looked after everyone in the country. But, under this mob, whether it was former Prime Minister Tony Abbott or, as it is now, that weak-kneed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, they do not care. What they are about is getting labour as cheaply as possible, to suck up to business in this country. If they could introduce slavery they would do it, so that they could get a pat on the back from their mates that hand over the brown paper bags in the back seat of the Bentley to Liberal Party members in Newcastle. No wonder they are bowing down to the business group in this. They want a reserve army of labour where it is cheap. And how cheap can they get it? They want a society where low-paid workers spend hours on buses coming in from satellite suburbs in the dark hours of the morning to clean their offices and make their cappuccinos without any penalty rates—that is what this mob want.