Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Is the minister aware of the announcement by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations that, under the Howard government’s welfare changes, parents would not have to accept a job that did not result in at least a $25 a week net gain after the costs of work had been taken into account? Isn’t it also the case that, under these changes, parents must work for 15 hours a week? Doesn’t this mean that the hourly return from work the government regards as acceptable for a parent is $1.66 an hour? Could the minister indicate whether he would work for a net benefit of $1.66 an hour?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again, we have the Australian Labor Party trying to suggest that our Welfare to Work initiatives that have been so well received by the Australian community have this implicit trend for less income and that people would get $1.66 per hour. What she deliberately fails to say is that these people will be better off, because they are not working for $1.66 per hour but are working and gaining a lot more. What the Australian Labor Party are saying to the people of Australia is: ‘If you are on welfare and you have the capacity to work, don’t bother going to work. Let the Australian taxpayer keep funding you, because we like to keep the pool of unemployment up.’ Those on the opposite side are absolutely aghast that we now have an unemployment rate of only 4.9 per cent. They want to return to the good old days of one million Australian being unemployed. That was their great boast as a government. After 13 years, that is what they could point to: one million Australians unemployed.

The vast majority of Australians are in fact aspirational. The vast majority of Australians on welfare do in fact want the opportunity to work. That is why we have a deliberate strategy of Welfare to Work, unlike Senator Wong and her party, which has a policy of welfare to nowhere. We know exactly what the social consequences of welfare to nowhere are—that is, generation after generation living off welfare without any suggestion that they should in fact be making a contribution if they are able to.

The simple fact is that those previous welfare recipients will not only be better off financially—as Senator Wong well knows—but also socially and health-wise. Every other indicator that you can look to shows that those who are engaged in mainstream society, in employment, are much better off—personally for their own mental and physical health and wellbeing, and for their social interaction, and children in those household are better off for the next generation. And yet the Australian Labor Party, without a policy of their own, come into this place and seek to grossly misrepresent that which we are doing for our fellow Australians who have every right and entitlement to a job.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is all very easy for people such as Senator Wong, who will always have a job courtesy of Labor Party endorsement or the CFMEU—which used to employ her before she came into this place—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ll have to withdraw that; you’re wrong again.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it is an insult that she worked for the CFMEU, I would be happy to agree and withdraw it. That is fine, and I am glad to have that on the record. Another own goal for Senator Evans, very foolishly. We as a government are committed to getting our fellow Australians into work and, irrespective of Senator Wong’s gross misrepresentation of our policies, we will continue to pursue that goal because of the benefits to our fellow Australians, as I have outlined.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that there is no such threshold set for a person with a disability? Doesn’t this mean that a person with a disability under this government can be forced to work for a return even lower than $1.66? Isn’t it the case that there is nothing to stop the Howard government from forcing a person with a disability to take a job that leaves them worse off working than on welfare?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again, we have the Australian Labor Party exposing their welfare policy. And what is it? It is to concentrate on people’s disabilities rather than on their abilities.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I raise a point of order. The supplementary question was very specifically about the fact that the government’s policy permits a person with a disability to go backwards. The answer is currently about Labor Party policy. I ask you to tell the minister to return to the question.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister was 15 seconds into his supplementary answer. I remind him of the question.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are very sensitive, aren’t they? I was only 15 seconds into my answer and they were up on a point of order because they know the point I was going to make is the one that sinks them in the public debate each and every time. That is because we look at people’s abilities and do not, as you do in your patronising fashion, concentrate on their disability. If people have a capacity to work for 15 hours or more per week, we seek to engage them in the mainstream of society and not to throw them onto the waste heap of welfare recipients, like the Australian Labor Party did when they were last in government, when more than one million of our fellow Australians were unemployed. That is not good enough for us. It might be good enough for them. Let the Australian people be the judge at the next election. (Time expired)

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.