Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I feel like the strong overarching theme for today's questions from the opposition is hypocrisy. I'll just go through a couple of examples about why that is. I feel like the really obvious one is that we campaigned pretty hard to enshrine a voice in Constitution for First Nations people. Those opposite campaigned relentlessly against it in a pretty ugly way, and then they come in here lecturing us about listening to First Nations people when they denied just that. It is absolutely laughable that they are trying to lecture us about listening to First Nations people when we campaigned on just that.

As someone who has worked with traditional owner groups to resolve conflicts in their groups and to repair relationships amongst family groups in traditional owner groups, I know firsthand the damage it does when politicians pick their favourites. That is exactly what's happening here. They are choosing to elevate the voices of some of the people that they think are more important in this place to get their political point across, and it's a disgrace because that will entrench generational conflict amongst families in New South Wales. That is what they are doing every time they get up and politicise this.

The other point I make is we've heard that the minister made a decision speaking to the same traditional owner group about a go-kart track. We've heard those opposite laugh about that, saying it's not comparable. I don't know about you but I don't think that the value of cultural heritage decreases because the size of the project is more valuable. That's not how it works. The size of the project does not make the cultural heritage less significant. It is still worthy of protection. That is exactly the decision the minister has made.

After Juukan Gorge, this side, the opposition and everyone in this parliament said, 'We can't allow things like that to happen again.' If we truly believe that we can't allow the destruction of cultural heritage in that way, then why wouldn't we be backing the decision of Minister Plibersek here? If those opposite have changed their position on how valuable cultural heritage is to our nation's identity and to First Nations people, they should come clean. We have an incredibly proud and rich history in this country that we should absolutely protect, and those opposite seem to be backflipping on that commitment.

Another point of hypocrisy that I want to draw to the attention of the chamber is that those opposite say they care about the cost of living and the burden being felt by Australians across the country, but that is absolutely opposite to the actions they take in this place when they vote against every single cost-of-living measure we bring to this parliament. Those of us on this side understand the pressures facing working families. We have taken decisive action to make sure Australians get the relief they need, and those opposite are showing they could not care less; despite what they say, their actions demonstrate otherwise. We're rolling out tax cuts for every taxpayer, not just some, and energy rebates for every household, and we're helping to make rents cheaper for nearly one million households. We're finalising the rollout of 60-day dispensing for additional medicines. We're indexing payments for people on JobSeeker, the aged pension, the disability support pension, the carers payment and the parenting payment as well as Commonwealth rent assistance.

We're doing all this in a responsible way that helps fight inflation—and those opposite have opposed all this. Those opposite want higher power prices, higher grocery prices, higher housing prices, higher taxes and lower wages; that is what their actions in this place have demonstrated. They've said they will cut $315 billion from the budget. That includes all the cost-of-living relief we've delivered. Where are these cuts coming from? Are they coming from our schools, roads, community services or social services? Those opposite need to own up to the Australian people.