Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the dirty tactics this government has undertaken to the detriment of all Australians. Today is 3 September, and I remind those opposite that the B team they brought in, those intellectual giants, said this on exactly 6 September 2013 in an interview with David Koch, the president of the Port Adelaide Football Club and TV presenter. When asked about doing dirty deals with Independents, the now Prime Minister said:

Let's not let independents and minor parties muck up the next Parliament.

…   …   …

… I want to form a strong majority government …

But that is not what Clive wants to do. The Prime Minister in almost one year to the day has totally reversed that. When he was interviewed by David Speers and Kieran Gilbert on Sky News—a favourite of those opposite—he said: 'Kieran, we don't want another government depending on dodgy deals.' This government is depending purely on dodgy deals. It did dodgy deals with the Greens to lift the debt ceiling limit, and it has now done a dodgy deal to hurt the superannuation savings of nine million Australians because it wants to kowtow to the mining giants that lines its pockets.

There should be no mistake about this. Every single working Australian should always remember that Tony Abbott said the words, 'We as a coalition are against compulsory superannuation.' He has always stood by that, and he is always going to. So it is really a question of intelligence—which is why we keep those opposite out of the question, because they do not have any. It is a question of intelligence for the Australian people. They need to sit and think and realise that those opposite, in every fibre of their being, have fought every single wage increase, superannuation increase and support for jobs and benefits for working Australians to get ahead.

I had an email from a constituent of mine who said that, two years ago, she was asked to purchase netbooks for her two children. It would have cost $1,200 and she could not afford it; neither could the parents of about 12 other children in the class. You see, even with the schoolkids bonus, it is hard to keep up with the supplies that kids need in the modern day. Without it, I see the divide between the haves and have-nots in our public school system increasing. That is exactly what those opposite are doing—dividing Australians into haves and have-nots by attacking those who do not have lots of money to fly on planes to India for weddings. They are pitting the haves against those who go out there and do the hard work.

Not one of them across on that side will have their superannuation impacted on. Every single other Australian who goes out there and works day and night will have their life savings impacted on because this government lied to the Australian people when it said that it would not do dirty deals with Independent parties. It has. It has done a deal with a mining magnate to remove the mining tax at the expense of Australians, at the expense of kids going to school and at the expense of people who go to work every day and work hard to contribute to this country.

We should be having this government here today standing up and apologising for the fact that it got into office based on a lie. They should be made to come and apologise to every single Australian they have hurt. They sit there and say, 'We are the party of small business.' But what have they done? They have taken the loss carry-back away from small businesses, impacting on the mum-and-dad businesses that drive economy. We have seen the Minister for Small Business get up here and say, 'Small business is the engine room at the economy. ' He was not here today. He has gone away. Maybe he did not want to be in this parliament when the Prime Minister came in after doing his dodgy deal.

People under the age of 50 have now been cut adrift by this government. The government are impacting on those people's superannuation. They are also impacting on those under the age of 30. If you are under the age of 30 and you are trying to buy a house and raise a family, this pack of multimillionaires over there think that it is okay for you to get no government support for up to six months. For up to six months, you will not get any government support to pay your bills, to look after your kids or to take them to the doctor. So you are going to have to think twice about that. They want to put a $7 GP tax in place and put $7 on pathology and also radiology.

We have seen a government that, with every fibre they have, have come out and attacked working Australians in every possible way. They should be ashamed of what they have done. We know that at the next election we are going to see a lot of changes over there. There are a lot of temporary faces sitting there who came into this place on a lie, and that lie will come back and bite them at the next election.

See this speech in context