Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, the Treasury modelling goes through the whole-of-economy impact and looks at different household types. Cameos are available, from my recollection, from the Treasury website about how different household types are assisted. We are talking about a cost-of-living impact of some 0.7 per cent of the consumer price index. That is significantly smaller than that which occurred when the GST was put in place, which was 2.5 per cent of CPI.

I thank the senator for his concession that some families will be better off, even if he says it is only by 20c a week; I think that is the first time he has conceded that. I would point out that that is obviously an average impact. We have targeted unashamedly the assistance to lower income Australians, to people on lower incomes—to pensioners, disability support pensioners and people earning less than $80,000 a year. So people, regardless of where they live, will get that assistance. (Time expired)