Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Given the Prime Minister has said that he could not live on the single age pension of $273 a week, why is he demanding that almost 900,000 Australians do just that?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the budget the government delivered an increase in payments for the forthcoming year of an order of magnitude of nearly $20 a week. We have indicated also that, through the process of the Harmer inquiry, we will undertake long-term pension reform. The core problem we face is: how do you deal justly with the two to three million Australians who find themselves in these difficult economic circumstances? What the Leader of the Opposition has done opportunistically, challenged as he is on the leadership front, is reach into the tin and say, ‘How can I get myself a headline while Malcolm is away in Milan?’ or wherever he was. He did this without any reference to the 2.2 million pensioners who were left out, without any reference to the widows, without any reference to the carers and without any reference to those who are disabled. He simply went for one category of pensioner in order to get himself a headline. But where the real rub in this lies is here: if the Leader of the Opposition were fair dinkum, he would have demanded action when they had the power, when it was before their cabinet only last year. This Leader of the Opposition is not fair dinkum about this. He is just not fair dinkum. The member for Wentworth is not fair dinkum about it because he slapped down the member for McPherson when she raised it only three months ago. None of those opposite are fair dinkum about this. As the Treasurer just said, the Australian Labor government is proud of its history in looking after those Australians most in need of support from government. We have done it for 100 years. If you look at the debates on the introduction of the age pension 100 years ago, it was the conservatives who said it will be the ruination of the economy. We have constantly stood by those Australians who need help. We will do that now and we will do it into the future.

Those opposite, led so particularly by the member for Bradfield, are simply playing short-term politics with this, rather than long-term reform. If any of you had a skerrick of sincerity about this, you would have acted when Mal Brough brought this to the cabinet. None of you did. None of you raised your voice—not one of you—when you had all the money available to do it. In nine months we have turned this around in terms of the process we have now got under way. We intend to act responsibly on this.

I look at the examples on the part of those opposite as they now confect moral outrage. Having had 12 years to act on this, they now say to us, after nine months, ‘Why do you fail to address what we were not interested in dealing with in our 12 years in office?’ Do you know something? The Australian people actually see through what you are up to. It says everything, I think, about the member for Bradfield and why the member for Bradfield is not to be much longer with us. It is the Leader of the Opposition who stands up and memorises everything and believes in nothing. That is the Leader of the Opposition—he memorises everything and believes in nothing. We see it on the age pension; we see it on so much which is before this parliament. I think it is time those opposite actually were fair dinkum with the Australian people and answered this question: if this was of deep concern to the Liberals, why, after 12 years, did you not even lift a finger?