Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Well, it looks like we're starting the year as we left last year, with the opposition opposing, with no positive plans, with no policies, with no ideas other than to come in here and disrupt the Senate and complain as the government gets on with providing cost-of-living relief to Australian households—so, nothing new. If that's the best they've got, then we're in pretty solid territory. We are here, and we have spent the summer looking at ways that we can further assist Australian households who are doing it tough with cost-of-living pressures.

I note that the motion moved by Senator Birmingham today talks about everything other than the proposal we are putting forward in legislation. It talks about a whole range of things, but as we hear them crab-walking away from their initial hysterical response—and we won't forget it. We won't forget when the deputy opposition leader went out and, before she'd even seen the legislation, before it had even been released, said that she opposed it and that the opposition would be against it. Then they did see it, and they said that they would reverse it and that they would roll it back; we remember that. And we remember the crab-walking away as they went: 'Oh, actually, we'll have a look at it. It does look pretty good. It does mean that 100 per cent of taxpayers get a tax cut. It does mean that 84 per cent of Australians get a bigger tax cut. It does mean that 11½ million Australians will get a bigger tax cut. Hang on a minute; maybe we shouldn't have gone out and said we should reverse it and roll it back.' And they started crab-walking away. That's what we're seeing now, and we've seen it from the Leader of the Opposition this morning. We see the talking points: 'We won't stand in the way of this, but we're going to take up all this time in the Senate to come in here and complain about something that we are now going to support'—for real! If you were to stick to your convictions, as our leader just said, then you would vote against the proposal, but you want it both ways. You want to say, 'Oh, actually, it is a much better deal, and we will vote for it, but we're actually going to be against it.'