Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to respond to Senator Farrell's motion in relation to the question he asked of Minister Ruston. I'll deal firstly with some of Senator Brown's contribution, where she talked about what Senator Ruston had to say.

Senator Ruston has made it very clear that what she was referring to was, of course, the fact that as a nation we rightly make a decision to prioritise the largest part of our budget to the welfare of our nation. Many Australians benefit from those welfare payments, and no-one is suggesting anything other than that those who are on a pension, or any other payment, are doing it tough. That is why we see the twice-yearly increases in the age pension, and, of course, why we look to lower cost of living pressures for Australians across the board. Whether they're pensioners, whether they are low- or middle-income earners, we are always on the side of those who are doing it tough, those who have worked very hard over their working lives and who are now seeking to enjoy their retirements, be they pensioners or self-funded retirees. That is fundamentally what the Liberal and National parties have stood for, for generations.

Conversely, we just had a federal election where the Labor Party sought to punish a portion of the Australian community, namely retirees, to pay for their promises. These are people who the Labor Party and the former Labor leader, Mr Shorten, referred to as the top end of town. He talked about them receiving gifts from the taxpayers when they got their franking credits. Now the new Labor leader, Mr Albanese, acknowledges that, when they were talking about them being the top end of town, they were wrong; that, actually, that was just rhetoric designed to pit one part of the community against another part—to talk about the top end of town and to talk about the other. Mr Albanese talked about the Caboolture retiree who earned $1,200 a year from franking credits. He said they felt like we weren't giving them respect—no, they weren't—and that we were classifying them as wealthy but they weren't wealthy. Doesn't that go to the heart of what we saw at this election when it came to retired Australians and when it came to older Australians? It was absolute disdain from the Labor Party, something that won't be forgotten for a long time.

Let me deal with a couple of aspects of how disdainful they were of older Australians. The shadow Treasurer at the time, Mr Bowen, effectively said to older Australians who were concerned about losing, in some cases, $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 or $5,000 a year of their limited income, 'Well, you can just go vote for someone else,' because he was so confident that they would have enough votes, completely ignoring self-funded retirees and pensioners, that they would be able to skate into office and pit one group of Australians against another.

The other part that was particularly disdainful towards older Australians was the fact that they chose not even to grandfather this policy. As bad as Labor's housing tax and negative gearing policies were, at the very least, in proposing to bring in those destructive tax changes, they acknowledged that they wouldn't hit members of the Labor Party, for instance. Many members of the shadow frontbench who own existing properties wouldn't be hit with changed tax arrangements. But when it came to the self-funded retiree in Caboolture relying on $1,200 a year in franking credits, they said: 'Bad luck. We're going to take that from you on day one. You may have structured your affairs in order to look after yourself and you may be on a modest income, but we're going to take that money away from you.' We're not going to be lectured on that by them.

It wasn't just bad policy, it wasn't just the politics of envy, it wasn't just referring to self-funded retirees as the top end of town; it was proposing to take away money that they were entitled to and that they had structured their affairs around. This is how the Labor Party treats older Australians. They sought to pit older Australians against younger Australians. They sought to pit those on middle incomes against those on somewhat higher incomes. The Australian people saw through it. Particularly, retired Australians saw through it. They took Chris Bowen's advice and did exactly what he said. They voted against the Labor Party as a result of those destructive policies. (Time expired)