Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I have the privilege to pay tribute to a man described by the Governor of Western Australia, His Excellency Dr Ken Michael AC, as someone who will be remembered as ‘a great Western Australian and a great Australian, whose pioneering vision and leadership provided the foundations for the economy of Western Australia that we all enjoy today’. That man is, of course, the Hon. Sir Charles Court AK, KCMG, OBE, a former premier of my home state of Western Australia, who passed away in Perth on 22 December 2007 at the wonderful age of 96. Sir Charles Court had a remarkable life which included a 29-year political career, with 20 years as a minister and eight years as a premier.

Born in the Sussex town of Crawley on 29 September 1911, he came to Australia from the United Kingdom with his parents in 1912. His parents were working-class battlers. His father was a master plumber and trade unionist, whilst his mother worked as a domestic. As boys, Charles and his brother Sydney delivered papers and did odd jobs to help supplement the family income. He showed considerable musical talent as a cornet player and at 14 years of age joined the musicians union, playing in the annual May Day parades. In 1930 he won the brass solo section of the national band competition, being named the champion of champions. This musical ability was not always a blessing, as he found out later, upon entering the military.

On leaving high school, Charles Court’s goal was to study law, but his parents could not afford the university fees. Undaunted, he studied accounting at night school and was articled to a firm of auditors. No doubt it was a first for his family, given their working-class roots, to have their son enter a profession. Eventually he qualified as an accountant and went into his own practice in 1933. In 1938 he became a foundation partner of the accountancy firm Hendry Rae and Court, now known as Grant Thornton, and remained as a partner of the firm until 1970. He was a life member of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the CPA and in 1983 was named the Australian chartered accountant of the year.

Between the two world wars, Charles Court completed national service and then volunteered with the 44th Battalion of the Australian Army. However, because of his skills as a musician, a band trainer and a conductor with the RSL Memorial Band, he found he was seconded to the band in both cases. Anyone who knew Sir Charles would agree that he always wanted to be right in the thick of the action, so upon his enlistment to serve in World War II he took steps to ensure he was not relegated to the band yet again. He enlisted in the AMF, with the RAASC, with a view to being transferred to the AIF as an infantryman as soon as possible.

He soon rose through the ranks, from private to lance corporal, corporal, lance sergeant and sergeant, and received a commission, lieutenant and temporary captain. He went to great lengths to avoid service with the band. An opportunity arose for him to transfer to the AIF and he was posted as a lieutenant to the 1st Armoured Regiment at Puckapunyal. Promotion to captain and adjutant of the division’s ASC support group followed.

Following service in Mingenew, Western Australia, he was promoted to temporary major and then transferred to the Northern Territory. The Japanese were by now bombing Darwin and the nation was under serious threat of a Japanese invasion from the north. Under the command of General Allen, Court led a team which undertook a military appraisal of the possibility of using Darwin and the Northern Territory as a base for offensive operations against the Japanese. General Blamey, Commander in Chief, accepted his plan. Having attained the rank of major, Charles Court was posted to the 2nd Australian Army Corps in Bougainville, New Guinea, where he served until the Japanese surrendered.

One of his final World War II duties was to head up a small infantry force to Buin in Bougainville to disarm and disperse the main body of Japanese forces on the island. He was demobbed in 1946 and returned to civilian life, but not before having earned an OBE for his service between April and September 1945 in maintaining and coordinating communication and supply lines in the outer islands. It was typical of his humour that Sir Charles always insisted that the OBE stood for ‘the other bloke’s efforts’.

Civilian life offered new challenges. In 1946 Charles Court joined the Liberal Party, then known as the Liberal and Country League, in Western Australia and in 1953 he successfully stood for the seat of Nedlands. The party was in opposition until the 1959 state election. Following the defeat of the Brand government at the 1971 election, the leader, Sir David Brand, retired and was replaced by Charles Court in May 1972. Two years later, in 1974, Charles Court found himself the Premier of Western Australia after the Liberal-Country Party coalition defeated the Tonkin Labor government.

As Minister for Industrial Development and the North West in the Brand government from 1959 to 1971, Charles Court grasped the enormity of the wealth potentially available to the state of Western Australia through the mining resources being developed at that time. In relation to the mining industry he was and will long remain the father of the boom.

As Premier, Charles Court convinced the federal government of the time to lift its ban on exporting iron ore from the Pilbara region of Western Australia to the nation of Japan, which only two decades earlier had been our wartime enemy. As a result, companies such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto grew out of the riches generated by the vast mineral deposits of the Pilbara region. He was condemned by many for building the 1,600-kilometre Dampier to Bunbury natural gas pipeline at a cost of $1 billion—a figure unheard of in those days in a state populated by fewer than one million people.

History, however, has proved his vision to be spot-on, with the pipeline now undeniably the industrial artery of the state, underpinning huge export and job-creating industries such as Alcoa’s alumina refineries. In fact, the foundations for the huge growth which Western Australia continues to experience today were laid by Sir Charles Court. It is not exaggerating to say that, without the vision and energy of Sir Charles Court, Western Australia may still be coming cap in hand to Canberra to seek special financial assistance, as it did in the 1930s. Now, thanks largely to his efforts, Western Australia generates massive wealth from its natural resources each year, much of which goes into Commonwealth coffers for the ultimate benefit of all Australians.

Sir Charles was a firm believer in the need for a strong bureaucracy to reduce the amount of red tape and get the job done. He hired quality staff, listened to them and gave them the necessary support and responsibility to complete the task. Sir Charles established the Department of Resources Development as a ‘one-stop shop’ for resources developers, something unheard of prior to that time. Many people with an industry background could be found in this department during Sir Charles’s time as Premier, with his mandate and support to guide and, if necessary, push developers through the bureaucratic obstacle course which stood between them and their ultimate goal.

It is worth remembering that in the 1960s Australian industry still enjoyed the buffer of government tariffs, which provided assistance with preferential deals and protected market access. In order to bring Australia’s resources sector to a state of international competitiveness, Sir Charles adopted a ‘no favourites’ approach in his aim to use the state’s huge iron ore and gas resources to develop an internationally competitive local industrial base. Local businesses in WA needed to compete with the world, even on their competitors’ own home turf, something which has stood them in good stead ever since.

Many people have paid tribute to his persistence and determination to achieve his goal of seeing his beloved Western Australia—not ‘West Australia’; it always had to be ‘Western Australia’—transformed from a Cinderella state into an economic powerhouse. My Liberal state colleague the Hon. Norman Moore MLC put it this way:

In my view, he’s the greatest Western Australian ever. I doubt the resources development we have now would have started in the same magnitude it did if it wasn’t for him. He didn’t want WA to be a mendicant State. He was determined WA would pay its way and be a unique contributor to the Commonwealth. He could see that WA could have a world class resources industry when most people didn’t think we were in the game. He had the drive, tenacity and intelligence to make it happen.

Charles Court was always a champion of state rights, undertaking legendary epic battles with Commonwealth governments of both political persuasions to ensure that Western Australia received a fair go from the ‘centralists’ in Canberra. Perhaps not quite so well known was Sir Charles’s commitment to the arts and culture in Western Australia. During his term of office, he oversaw the inauguration of Murdoch University, the restoration of His Majesty’s Theatre, the construction of the Perth Entertainment Centre and the opening of the Art Gallery of Western Australia in 1979 as part of the new Perth Cultural Centre.

But, in paying tribute to Sir Charles’s achievements, I do not want to overlook his endearing human qualities. He was a fine husband to Lady Rita Court, his first wife, and a great father to their five sons, Victor, Barry, Ken, Richard and Geoffrey. After Rita died he got married again, at the grand age of 85, to Judy, to whom he was likewise devoted. At the memorial service, his son Ken said:

There is something in seeing your old man married at 85 and still with a twinkle in his eye that gives great confidence for one’s own future.

In fact, I recall that he was still in good form at the celebrations for his 95th birthday, enthusiastically conducting the City of Perth Band. The Hon. John Howard MP, who was Prime Minister at the time, said in his tribute speech on that occasion:

If you think back over the last 50 years, no figure in public life has done more to promote resource development in this State (Western Australia)—and therefore Australia—than Sir Charles Court. The contribution, through that energy, that he has made to the contemporary wealth of Australia has been enormous.

Many people have a story to share about how Sir Charles Court touched their lives. For me, two in particular demonstrate his compassion and concern for his fellow citizens. The first concerns the Hon. Bob Kucera MLA, who is now the Labor member for Yokine in the WA parliament. When Mr Kucera was a ‘lowly detective constable’, as he puts it, Sir Charles summoned him to lunch. At the time, Mr Kucera was part of a team investigating the attempted bombing of the Department of Labour and National Service building in Perth during the Vietnam War, an incident which saw two people convicted. Mr Kucera’s family then became targets of a ‘terror campaign’ waged by supporters of the would-be bombers. Mr Kucera recalls:

Sir Charles didn’t want to know about the case—what he did want to know about was my wife and my children. He showed a deep and genuine concern. I was amazed that this man who was then at the pinnacle of his success would go to such lengths, firstly to support me as a young police officer and recognising the role of coppers in a community, but more importantly, the recognition he was giving to the family and children of a police officer.

The second story concerns former Western Australian Labor Premier John Tonkin, whose government was defeated in 1974 by the Liberal-Country Party Coalition, with Sir Charles Court at the helm. As premier Sir Charles had a healthy respect for Tonkin, and the feeling was mutual. Over time, their respect for each other turned into a close friendship. Towards the end of his life, John Tonkin was visited in his Como nursing home by Sir Charles Court every Thursday morning precisely at 9.50 am, just in time for morning tea at 10 am. The timing of his visits to John Tonkin reflected his lifelong maxim: ‘If you’re not ten minutes early, you’re late.’ This was something he reminded me of each time we met. He would tap his watch and then gesture with his hand to say, ‘Right, you’re okay; you’re here 10 minutes early.’

It is well known that Sir Charles thrived on an average of four hours sleep per night. It is said he wore out four press secretaries during his time as Premier, at least one of whom was reputed to have had a nervous breakdown. Despite the heavy workload, he made sure he was home for dinner every night with the family, even when state parliament was sitting.

In death, as in life, Sir Charles Court commanded great respect from both sides of politics. His memorial service at Winthrop Hall at the University of Western Australia was planned, from start to finish, by him. The congregation were asked to arrive 30 minutes early to enjoy the music he had specially chosen, which included Sussex by the Sea, a reference to his birthplace in England; love songs, like Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes and My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose, and other wonderful selections. High in the balcony, cornets and trumpets played, among other tunes, the prelude to Te Deum. Towards the end of the service, the Last Post was played, followed by a minute’s silence, then the Ode to the Fallen was recited, followed by Reveille on the bugle.

His memorial service was attended by a diverse range of people from across the whole of the political spectrum, including the Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery; former prime ministers Malcolm Fraser and John Howard; the current WA State Premier, the Hon. Alan Carpenter MLA; the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Stephen Smith MP; the leader of the federal opposition, Dr Brendan Nelson MP; numerous current and former federal and state Liberal members of parliament; captains of business and industry; and 1,000 ordinary Western Australians who just wanted to pay homage to this incredible leader and wonderful human being.

His granddaughter, Elizabeth Laurence, told the congregation that her grandfather prayed for each of his 18 grandchildren every night, told them that love made the world go around, and phoned them on their birthdays wherever they were in the world. ‘That made me feel pretty special,’ she said. Sir Charles was also the great-grandfather of 19 great-grandchildren. His five sons are all high achievers who continue to participate strongly in Western Australia’s community life.

Richard, himself a former Western Australian Premier, said, ‘We have been blessed to have a dad who had such a strong commitment of family and certainly a selfless sense of duty to whatever responsibility he undertook.’ Victor, his eldest son, said that not many people outside the family saw Sir Charles’s caring, understanding and compassionate side. Barry said that the family is only now learning how many people Sir Charles assisted, encouraged and supported during his life. The note I received from his son, Geoffrey Court, ends with, ‘He’s set us a great example of family life—the most important thing for him.’ There are plans to erect a permanent memorial in the form of a statue of Sir Charles Court, possibly on Florence Hummerston Reserve overlooking the resources precinct in St George’s Terrace, Perth. This location would be symbolically significant, given Sir Charles’s role in the development of the North West Shelf.

I believe it will be a very long time before we see another leader of Sir Charles Court’s stature, vision and humanity, if ever. He was indeed a national treasure and I am very proud to have known him.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, the Ngunawal people. It was a great pleasure to be at the first welcome to country that we had in this place on 12 February. I congratulate the government for having made sure that that happened. It was also a great privilege to be at this place when the apology was finally made.

It is very important that the commitment to an ongoing welcome to country is maintained in this place. It was a privilege to hear the Prime Minister of Australia finally apologise for the deliberate government policy of removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families. I think the new government has made a very promising start in that area, and I will go into that in more detail. I also think the new government perhaps was surprised by both the extent and strength of public reaction to the apology. I have heard many stories of schools in Western Australia—it was seven o’clock in the morning—where children gathered to watch the telecast. As we know, people gathered in central places in the capitals of Australia, but I have also heard many tales of people gathering around the televisions at their workplaces and holding impromptu events. I think that displays the extent to which the apology touched this nation.

I think we need to pay great heed to this reaction. I am hoping it reflects a new spirit of openness within the Australian public to move forward on these issues. This is why I think it is important that the new Rudd government pushes forward with its promise of a new day dawning for Aboriginal Australians. But the Greens also very strongly believe that we need to do more than make an apology. We need to do more than just commit to closing the gap on health and education, and all the other areas of disadvantage that Aboriginal Australians suffer today in this country. It requires a commitment to advance the issue of Aboriginal representation and rights. And it is pleasing to see the government commit to a promise of evidence based policy, when it addresses its views on the Northern Territory intervention, to ensure that Commonwealth investment in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities actually delivers on-the-ground benefits that address the priority needs of these communities. The absolute key is in partnership and consultation with these communities.

During estimates, an answer to questions that I was asking about the way money has been invested under the intervention was that $72.4 million, which was the largest share of the money, had been invested in income quarantining. That is not actually money going to communities; that is administration in setting the process up. Only $1.3 million at that stage had been invested in better outcomes in education and I think that $7.2 million had been invested in families. At the time of estimates no extra childcare workers had been put in place, and safe houses were only just being established. The key things that you would have thought were necessary to address child abuse, such as putting in place safe houses and extra child care and child protection workers—things that you would think would be the absolute first priority—were yet to be put in place, although we had managed to spend $168 million at the time. And $30.8 million had been invested in housing but that housing was in fact for the government business administrators and other persons, and for surveying the townships, as I understand it. The then government was never able to explain how taking control of townships protected children. This new government has still not been able to explain how that equates to protecting children. But $30.8 million had been spent putting houses in place for the business managers and, as I understand it, no housing, or very little, has actually been provided to Aboriginal community members themselves.

We will continue in that area to push the government on their evidence based policy. Certainly the evidence I have seen to date indicates very strongly to the Greens and to me that we need a change in direction on the NT intervention. We certainly do not want to follow the same example of the NT intervention for the foreshadowed involvement in the Kimberley, in my home state of Western Australia, where things are also pretty dire in many Aboriginal communities. We certainly do not want to see the government taking the NT intervention model and replicating it in Western Australia. I understand that the minister will be visiting the Kimberley very shortly and, hopefully, really consulting very strongly with the local community about the government’s future involvement in the Kimberley.

The Greens very strongly support—and I will put it on record again—the federal government investing and providing resources to address Aboriginal disadvantage and other issues confronting the Northern Territory. We disagree with the way that the government chose to do it and we certainly disagree with exempting the intervention from the Racial Discrimination Act. We certainly disagree with compulsory income quarantining so that it is used indiscriminately. During the last sitting in this place I addressed some of the concerns, and the evidence and events that have been happening around that. We certainly oppose the removal of the permit system and I look forward to debating the government’s bill, which they plan to bring in very shortly, around the restoration of the permit system. I look forward to seeing more details from the government about the review, which I understand and hope will be a thorough review, of the NT intervention in a couple of months time when the 12-month period comes up.

I have read the speech of the Governor-General. He outlined quite an ambitious agenda, an agenda which I feel does not quite go far enough. There are some very good elements to it, making some effort to look to and plan the future to re-engage the community and civil society. As I have outlined in this place before, the Greens have very strong concerns about the attacks that were made on civil society under the 11 years of the Howard government. I have articulated in this place before our concerns about that and, in particular, concerns about attacks that were made on the non-government community and about the politicisation of some elements of the Public Service. We are certainly pleased that the government agenda is starting to address some of the gaps and measures that were brought in under Howard, to try to bring some fairness back into our social policy.

However, we are concerned that the agenda is a bit short on how the government are going to implement it. We are also concerned about what is left out. The government talk about responsible economic management and the need to confront inflationary pressures but leave out any mention of why the government still insist on delivering the me-too promise of the $31 billion of inflationary and unnecessary tax cuts for the middle classes. They talk about closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage but talk only about health and education and leave out any mention of addressing economic disadvantage and creating greater employment and life opportunities or addressing the chronic gap in safe and appropriate housing. And they make no mention of how they will move forward on the issue I mentioned earlier of Indigenous representation and inclusion in policy development and governance. This is from a government that now has a minister and a parliamentary secretary responsible for social inclusion. One would think that all those things are absolutely essential in addressing a key issue like social inclusion and putting fairness back into Australia.

I also have to ask the question—I have not been able to find the answer and I would love the government to be able to tell me if we have got it wrong: where is the Indigenous representation and the commitment to address the lack of Aboriginal infrastructure in Infrastructure Australia? If we are talking about lack of infrastructure, the most chronic gap in Australia relates to the lack of infrastructure, whether it is in housing, community services, decent water and sewerage, roads—any decent form of service—to Aboriginal communities. It would seem to me that that would be the most urgent thing that Infrastructure Australia needs to be addressing.

The government talks about improving governance and transparency but then focuses on gathering a hand-picked elite—or selection of people through media competitions—to attend the 2020 Summit rather than addressing and outlining in more detail how it will enable greater civil society participation in policy development and dealing with what I consider to be the abuses of the non-government organisations under the previous government. It mentions social inclusion, as I have touched on, but then basically defines that as increasing productivity and workplace participation, as if social inclusion is all about increasing productivity. Well, I am sorry, the Greens have a very different view of what social inclusion should be about. Should it not rather be about ensuring that everybody has a decent quality of life?

Under the social inclusion area, the government does not mention a national property strategy. Where is the program to build resilience and community in those areas that are and have been already identified as suffering? Some people call them poverty postcodes. Where is the program to start working on those areas where multiple measures of social inclusion converge? There is plenty of well-documented evidence on those areas. There is plenty of research to start looking at on what level of intervention is needed in those communities. For example, early childhood intervention is clearly key, but that is not articulated in the government’s social inclusion agenda so far—and I look forward to the further articulation of that particular agenda. I think the government would be well advised to pay very close attention to the Australian Council of Social Service forum that is being held in April in Melbourne.

We of course welcome the commitment to improve workplace fairness and to reform the industrial relations system in this country. We are deeply concerned that the unfair dismissal provisions do not apply universally and, if you happen to be in a workplace of fewer than 15, it is okay for you to be unfairly dismissed. We are also deeply concerned that the government is waiting so long to address the issues around the Australian Building and Construction Commission. We believe that organisation should be finished and wound up as soon as possible. There are then also issues around right of entry and there is a significant list of what we believe are deficiencies in the government’s workplace agenda. We believe that relates very strongly to addressing the balance between work and family responsibilities, so we are glad to see that there is a commitment to addressing that balance but do not believe that the government’s agenda goes far enough to deal with that.

We have also heard, and the government has articulated, a commitment to more and better services, to an education revolution, to more childcare services, to more training programs to close the skills gap and to serious action on aged care, dental care, rural health services and elective surgery lists. We have heard about a commitment to addressing housing affordability issues and homelessness and also about programs to address climate change. As I have mentioned, there is also a commitment to close the gap in Indigenous health and education. The government keeps talking about the delivery of these services, and these are, we believe, very laudable objectives that we support. But we do not believe you can do this while still delivering $31 billion of tax cuts—and I might add that, in talking extensively to the community and through email correspondence and web mail et cetera, I have only heard two people say, ‘I would rather have tax cuts.’ If you ask Australians today what they would rather have, a tax cut or service delivery, I can tell you what they would rather have. They would rather have service delivery. They want to know that they can go to hospital and be seen within a reasonable time. They want to have access to affordable dental care. They want to be able to access education support and they want to be able to participate in the workplace. They also want to provide for and look after those living with disabilities, for example.

While there may be some areas of budgetary excesses—and I think that the government would do well to look at some of the big pork-barrelling from the days of the Howard government, which there clearly was—there are also programs there that we do not believe should be cut, and I will come to carers in a minute. The government have articulated policy around climate change and water, but guess what? There is a broader environment out there. The government have said extremely little about their agenda on the broader environment. What is happening with the Natural Heritage Trust? What is happening with NHT3? Nobody knows. We have community based and regional NRM organisations that do not know whether they are going to be funded into the future or at what level of funding, and they are losing staff already. These regional groups have been the vehicle that has provided natural resource management throughout Australia, a system that has been refined over the years, and we need to be learning how to better invest in and target our natural heritage trust resources. So, yes, the system needs review and the programs need review. I would be the first to say that. But the fact is the government have not articulated what their environment program is going to be. Senator Bob Brown has spoken at length about the issues around the pulp mill in Tasmania, for example. One of the first decisions the government have made is to support the go-ahead of the pulp mill. If that is the government’s agenda for the environment, heaven help the environment of Australia. The government need to be articulating very clearly what their environment agenda is and consulting with the community about the future of NHT3.

Then we come to the government’s cost-cutting and the story that has been running in the media over the last couple of days around the carers bonus. Then, of course, we moved on to the seniors bonus. No wonder the government were being portrayed as a careless government. What about fairness? Where is the social inclusion agenda—and I tell you what, my phone was running hot—if they allow carers to think that they are going to be worse off? Any politician in Australia knows about the plight of carers, because Carers Australia and the carers of Australia made it very clear during the election campaign what their agenda was and lobbied very hard to alert Australians to their plight. Instead of taking away their bonus, the government have now clarified that they are not taking it away; they are, as I understand it through the media and some of the comments made in this place this afternoon, considering rolling it into ongoing payments. But that ups the payment by $20 or $30 a week when what the carers have been asking for is a doubling of the carer payment.

There needs to be a superannuation fund for carers because, as we know, carers can work part time at best, and that is often interrupted. Carers do not have adequate provisions put away for their future. There needs to be a coordinated strategy about how to address policy across government. These are the things that carers have been asking for and these are the things that government need to be looking at if they are talking about social inclusion and making Australia fairer. These are the issues that the government need to be thinking about.

What is happening with the CSTDA—the Commonwealth state/territory disability agreement? Those issues still have not been resolved. Issues like access to the workplace and workplace training for people living with disabilities need to be addressed. A good start has been made, but we think there needs to be significantly more progress on the government’s response to developing a fairer and more just Australia. Getting rid of the tax cuts and investing in services that the community is calling for is a very good way to start.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak to the issue of the carers bonus. I call on the Rudd Labor government to commit immediately to the carers bonus, and, indeed, the seniors bonus of $500. The government need to provide an ironclad guarantee that the $1,600 annual bonus to carers will remain. We cannot wait until the May budget. The indecision and the word games by the Rudd Labor government over the last five days have been almost laughable. They are causing enormous anxiety to older Australians and vulnerable Australians—those that are disabled, those that have families that are in a very difficult and onerous position. The depth of despair and distress knows no bounds.

This Rudd Labor government needs to wake up and reverse the decision that has been put forward by the department or by their own decision makers which was leaked last week and is now on the public record. So far the response from the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, and, indeed, his ministers, has been entirely inadequate.

The first response was from the Prime Minister while in the Solomon Islands a couple of days after this was revealed, when the anxiety levels were increasing markedly. It was along the lines that he ‘won’t leave them in the lurch’. What does that mean, exactly? Weasel words! Then the next day, or the day after, the Prime Minister said that ‘these people won’t be worse off’. What the 400,000 carers, and their families, of Australia need is an ironclad guarantee that the government will commit to retaining the $1,600 annual bonus payment. That is what the carers need.

In my view, the carers in Australia are the unsung heroes of this nation. They are providing billions of dollars in savings to the economy each year. The time and compassion that they give to their charges is immeasurable. To even contemplate placing further financial burdens on them is inconceivable to me.

I want to draw the chamber’s attention to the responses to these matters of both the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, and the local member for Bass, Jodie Campbell.  Both of them have said publicly that these payments were a ‘one-off’. They were not one-off payments—that is categorically wrong. They were paid each year, and every year, for the last four years.

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

Read your budget papers!

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Evans knows that, as does every member of the Senate Labor Party, and as does the Prime Minister. Why won’t you give an ironclad guarantee, Senator Evans? Why won’t you? There are 400,000 Australians out there that want to know.

Debate interrupted.