Duncan Spender (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

No. This, again, is not my first speech. I rise to be the only parliamentarian, I suspect, who will oppose this bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Energy Assistance Payment) Bill 2019. This bill provides a one-off payment to various welfare recipients, ostensibly for the purposes of electricity costs but, of course, they can use the payment for whatever they want.

This bill robs Peter to pay Paul. Now, Peter has had a terrible deal over the past 11 years because Peter represents future generations. Over the past 11 years, we have had deficits, year in, year out. That means more debt. That means more of a debt burden on Peter, our representative of future generations. Now this policy is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Paul represents our current welfare recipients. We should not be providing money to current welfare recipients if that involves hurting future welfare recipients by putting Australians in more debt, by being less able to have a sustainable welfare system in the future and by being more likely to have a crippling tax burden in the future.

Last night in the federal budget, Josh Frydenberg, our Treasurer, said that we've got to avoid the crippling interest debt that we have and the interest bill that we're paying year in, year out. I think he referred to $18 billion. This payment is adding to the interest burden. It is absolutely ridiculous for the Treasurer to say in the one speech, 'We've got to avoid adding to the interest burden on future generations,' and then within sentences add to the interest burden on future generations. It is sheer hypocrisy.

The only reason this payment exists is that they want to get it out the door now because they're going to have a deficit this year anyway and they don't want to hurt their chances of getting a surplus in future years. It is dodgy accounting and it is robbing Peter to pay Paul.