QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator CICCONE (Victoria) (16:41): It's amazing to see how much this place can change in 12 months since the last federal election. The opposition have now gone through two leaders. Now with Mr Taylor we've seen an opposition in complete freefall because not only he but all his colleagues both here in the Senate and in the other place have an obsession with One Nation and outdoing One Nation.

You can see that they are very spooked by the contributions that we have just heard and the contributions that we continue to hear in this place. Instead of focusing on delivering real cost-of-living measures to help Australians with what they need and want, we have an opposition that is in denial. They are absolutely in denial.

They come into this place and say that the government of the day, the Labor government, has not been standing up for workers, ignoring the fact that they have a track record of voting consistently against tax cuts for Australian workers. That is the greatest shame that you are bringing to the Liberal Party brand, if I can give you some free advice. The fact is that they continue to vote against tax cuts, and you do not hear them utter an actual word about that.

The fact is the Liberal Party has voted more times against tax cuts in this parliament and in the last than in their entire existence since Menzies formed that great party. Then we heard words from Senator Hume about being egregious. Well, I'll tell you what is egregious: the Liberal Party is now pandering to the far right.

Every single member of the Liberal Party that stands up for preselection and re-election will have to be thinking, 'Jeez, I wish I get the No. 1 spot, because if I'm No. 2 or No. 3, I won't be here in this place any longer.' You can absolutely see that right now. That's because the Liberal Party—I want to focus on the Liberal Party—have voted, again, against these tax cuts for 13 million Australians.

What do you say to those people, like those people in the gallery that you tell us to look at? You are voting against tax cuts for nurses, for retail workers and for hospitality workers—we could keep going on. There are all those workers that we relied on during COVID, the essential workers, the construction workers, and the workers in this building like the cleaners, the security guards and the people who do the Hansard.

You're saying, 'No, we don't think you're worthy of having a tax cut.' Not only that; you went to the last election saying that you would repeal those tax cuts. You said you would repeal those tax cuts, Senator Henderson, and that is a fact—you and all your colleagues, through you, Deputy President. It is on the record that you have an awful track record when it comes to defending Australian workers and actually being on the side of Australian workers.

This government has to work in this place, acknowledging that we just don't have the numbers and we have to work with the crossbench to get the best deal that we can for the Australian workers. Senator Dean Smith: You work with the Greens. Senator CICCONE: Yes, and the Greens are happily backing Australian workers.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. The party that used to be the party of aspiration are now the party on the side who are anti worker, anti the economy, anti productivity. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Ciccone, it would be helpful if you directed your remarks through the chair.

Senator CICCONE: I will come back to you, through you, Deputy President. What we are seeing now is a collaboration of the three conservative parties in this place and outside. They should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up for— (Time expired)