QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator COLLINS (New South Wales—Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate) (16:37): 'Dream big', 'dream big'—dream big, Australian people, because guess what? Labor is going to tax your dreams. There will be $77 billion coming straight from your blood, sweat and tears when you build up and turn your dreams into reality—$77 billion of new taxes.

They call it tax cuts, but it's $77 billion of new taxes. What else did we hear? 'Guts and courage'. How about more freedom for the Australian people?

How about less government for the Australian people? How about lower taxes for the Australian people so they can get on with their lives and dream big and turn that into a reality for them and their families and their households? The problem with this government is that they spend an awful lot of money.

It's a big government. It's a very big government. They spend a lot of money.

What does that do? That pushes up inflation. They stand there and talk about tax cuts for workers, but what's really happening with your wages?

Your real wages are going down. You earn more; you get taxed more. And we have heard about this widows tax.

We asked about the widows tax today. We asked for the government to explain why the Prime Minister voted for a widows tax but has failed to introduce legislation to abolish it. Actually, all we want to understand is whether this government is completely incompetent and didn't realise that they had a widows tax in their legislation or whether they knew that there was a widows tax and yet voted for it anyway.

That's what we want to know—incompetent or egregious? What's the answer, Labor? Well, we don't know, because they don't give us the answer.

We also want to know whether the widows tax staying in the legislation is part of the dirty deal with the Greens. Is this the Greens tax that they want to put in? We don't know.

We heard this week that Labor's budget wasn't ambitious enough, didn't go far enough and didn't tax the Australian people enough. And here we are. They've rushed through legislation and now they're scrambling to fix it up.

They're scrambling to do consultations because the Australian people took one look at it and said, 'That's not okay.' Now they're trying to work out how they're going to make it better. Of course, our position is to scrap the whole thing altogether and start again. Let's talk a little bit more about this widows tax, because it's not just a tax on widows— Senator Tyrrell: Don't forget about widowers.

Senator COLLINS: of course—or widowers. Thank you, Labor. Don't forget the widowers.

Senator Grogan: It's taken you a couple of weeks to remember. Senator COLLINS: I will take that interjection. Did you remember it?

Did you know about it? Did you remember it afterwards? What is it, Labor?

There are the widows and the widowers, but what about the divorcees? What about them? Is there any kind of consideration for the tax slugs that you're putting on these people?

It's absolutely disgraceful. What about the women that are escaping violence? If you want to quickly talk about houses, where are the houses for the vulnerable women and children?

Four thousand houses were meant to go to vulnerable women and children. Have they? Nobody can give me the answer on that.

And you tut! Senator Tyrrell: I didn't tut. Senator COLLINS: You did.

I heard you when I was talking about vulnerable women and children. How dare you, Senator Tyrell!