Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The facts are, which the Labor Party just don't like hearing, that up to three-quarters of the people on the national list are receiving some form of Commonwealth aged-care support, in any event. Is there a backlog? Yes. What did we inherit from the Australian Labor Party? It was a system that did not even have a proper, orderly list. So people were left in mayhem, uncertainty and insecurity. We are seeking to deal with that by allocating further funds and by telling the Australian people in the aged-care sector what they're entitled to with what is in the scheme of things a relatively small proportion of $8.2 million out of $5,500 million. Do the percentages on that; it's a minuscule percentage. To advise them as to what they actually might be entitled to and how the system is going to be rolled out is something that I think is appropriate.

If the Australian Labor Party were genuinely concerned about older Australians, they would repudiate and cancel their policy in relation to the treatment of franked dividends for those Australians who are seeking to prepare for their own retirement to ensure that they are not a burden on their fellow Australians. But what Mr Shorten and the Australian Labor Party are seeking to do is double-tax our older Australians who so heavily rely, through their self-managed super fund, their own investment or indeed other retirement schemes, on the benefit of getting a reimbursement of tax that is already paid. For many thousands of Australians, that impacts people on an income of less than $18,000. The vast bulk of people who will be impacted will be people who earn less than $87,000 per annum, not the filthy rich. But they're the people from whose pockets Mr Shorten and the Australian Labor Party will be pilfering money to put into Labor's spending spree.

Let's be very clear: when it comes to the actual issue that Senator Polley sought to address, the government has a plan. We are caring for more and more Australians and we will continue to do so on the back of sound economic management. (Time expired)