Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is important that we suspend standing orders on this issue, because it is important that every member opposite is forced to vote personally on whether or not they want orphans of veterans to be able to receive this payment. We have heard time and again that somehow this was an election commitment but not one of them has been able to produce the brochure they provided to their electorate telling people that this is what they had in store for the orphans of veterans. It is important that we set aside the time in the parliament to force people into the parliament who have walked out. The Prime Minister is so proud of his policy on this that he left the chamber the moment the debate commenced. Almost all of the front bench made sure that they cleared out the moment this debate started to take place. By suspending standing orders and by making sure that this comes to a vote, we will make sure that they come back into this chamber in a way that will stand on their record forever, in a way that their electorate will know about and in a way that they will not be able to hide from the veterans communities in each of the electorates that are represented on the other side of this chamber.

The priorities here are breathtaking, and it is important that we set aside the business of the House to bring this issue to a head. Never once during the election campaign did any of those members opposite say—there is not a quote that anyone has been able to refer to—that they were going to cut the entitlements for orphans of veterans. We are talking about people whose parents have died defending this nation and they are going to have their benefits cut—for an amount of money that equals four highly-paid women receiving paid parental leave under the Prime Minister's gold-plated scheme. You will not find a more breathtaking error in priorities than what the government is doing here. Those opposite must not be allowed to avoid the situation where their name has this issue attached to it on the record of this parliament. Hansard records everybody who votes each way and it is recorded forever. Those opposite will never again, after today, be able to claim that somehow they are friends of veterans.

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