MOTIONS

Senator SHELDON (New South Wales—Chief Government Whip in the Senate) (16:58): I've been thinking about the comments from the last speaker and comments from the other speakers in this debate. From most of my interactions with senators in this place, I think we all have a view about trying to make things better for fellow Australians and the ambition to help particularly those who are in need but really everybody in the community, to lift people up and give them an opportunity.

But the real question comes down to not just wishing for it to happen but actually working out policy so that it can happen and, when those policies are put forward, not voting against them. Consistently there have been policies put forward to deal with the cost of living. There are consistently policies put forward in this place to make it easier, not easy, for Australians, to make sure that people can raise a family and can afford to buy small luxuries and sometimes even larger ones—whether it be our housing policy, whether it be our industrial relations policy and, yes, whether it be our energy policy.

But what we see time and time again is that, with every proposal to reduce taxes, to improve wages, to deal with energy policy, to give bill relief, those opposite, the parties of the right, the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation, gang up to say to fellow Australians, 'That's not the right way to go.' I think they have an ambition for things to be better, but the problem is they never have a pathway.

They never have an explanation. They never have a sense of what has to be done, because, if they did, they'd be voting for the things that have been put forward in this place. I hear them say that we haven't had a real wage increase and there are issues with wages.

Yes, I agree with you. Wages in many places need to go up even further—in an appropriate, fitting and negotiated way that the system allows. But the fact is that One Nation has, for the last 20-odd years, voted with the Nationals and Liberals on every occasion to smash the living wage.

They voted against gig workers having minimum standards. They voted against gig workers not being sacked by an algorithm. They voted against gig workers getting paid the minimum wage.

They voted against truck drivers getting better arrangements. Those at the top of the supply chains that are making all the dollars are the ones that they rally against but vote for. It's easy to rally against somebody and then tell them, on the private: 'Don't worry.

I'm not going to vote against you; I'm just going to talk against you.' That's the reality of what happens on the opposite side. That's the reality of what happens with One Nation. Time and time again they come into this place and vote against real Australians getting real support and having real rights.

When they start talking about this very broad thing about blue tape, green tape, black tape and red tape, what they're talking about is that they want to take rights off people. They talk about those as red tape. Someone's red tape, blue tape, green tape or black tape is someone's rights they want to take away.

Time and time again they come in this place and, whether it's a motion or a proposal, vote something down. They vote down consistently people's rights in this country. And I don't mean only people in small groups; I mean across the economy.

When you say that you're against, don't support and won't rally for the minimum wage being increased, which you do time and time again; when you say that people should not have access to parental leave; when you vote against weekend penalty rates being protected; when you vote against same job, same pay, which you did consistently—where one person's getting paid $20,000 or $30,000 more for doing the exact same job as the person they're standing next to and getting the same instructions and working for the same management, while the company at the top of supply chain is making all the money out of it—then you are saying to Australians, 'You don't deserve to get a leg up.' Oh, sorry, that's right; we're all lazy Australians.

Remember that? We're lazy Australian workers. That's how we were described by One Nation at the National Press Club.

I saw every one of those One Nation senators and House of Reps people standing there and applauding. I still remember when the increase of $110 a week to the minimum wage came through, and Barnaby Joyce called it a pittance, something that was hardly even worth it. Those sorts of approaches from those people opposite tell the real story.

That tells the truth of what's actually going on. That tells the truth about what they're actually saying. They say one thing and they quietly say to those very powerful forces, who make the Tim Tams: 'You can get away with it.

You can charge more. You can make them pay more.' We've brought price-gouging regulations in against the retailers. We've brought actions against a whole series of areas in the energy industry to deal with those shonky arrangements where they just keep putting prices up.

You'd find out about it after it was done secretly, but they have to do it on an annual basis. That's more transparent. We turned around and had energy bill relief, which they voted against.

So they can paint it any way they like on the opposite side. They can play whatever game they like to play, saying they really know what's going on. Well, you know what?

I know what's going on with you people: you're voting for the ones that you're rallying against rather than voting for the people you pretend you're supporting. That's what the right is about. That's how the right across here have been voting for, for 20 years.

Let's not pretend to ourselves that One Nation is some new fad. I've sat here for seven years and watched it my entire life, and those characters across the way have voted with the other characters across the way and voted against every initiative that's given somebody a leg up or a support or lifted the boats for all, because they think it should just be dog eat dog.

People like Gina Rinehart can get away with whatever they want whilst everybody else that's working for them can't get a fair shake. That's why they want to get rid of same job, same pay. I heard them rallying for same job, same pay for years, saying the casuals were being badly treated, and what did they do?

When it came to it, they turned around and voted against those same people. They misrepresented what they were going to do to them. They were going to betray them.

That's exactly what they did. They come into this place and, on every occasion, they betray those people they pretend to represent. Now, I agree that we all have an aspiration in this place for things to be better, but their pathway to be better is to look after those at the top of the town rather than the people across the town.

We've got so many changes that we've made that have made improvements in so many places. There are the tax questions. We've had five rounds of tax cuts, leaving the average worker up to $2,800 better off per year.

And what have the parties of the right done? They have voted against it every time. That's what they do.

They say one thing and then they vote against tax cuts. They say wage increases and then they vote against the way to get a wage increase and don't support wage increases coming in. They talk about Australian workers. 'We're for them.' 'No, they're all lazy.' They talk about families.

Oh, no, they shouldn't have parental leave. The reality is that this country will be in a dire position, that every hardworking Australian will be in trouble, if these people are ever elected to become part of a government. The coalition of the ugly, I'd call it, because of the consequences when you start standing up here saying there's too much money spent on some of the things that they raised here on so many occasions.

When you get down to the detail, you find out how many billions of dollars they want to take out of services for Australians. They want to follow the playbook that's been used in other parts of the world, because they can't come up with an idea themselves. So they want to take an un-Australian approach and say that they're going to beat down on every Australian to make sure things are just a bit better for those at the top just to make sure that they get a bit more of a pat on the back from Gina.

You never know; there might even be an extra plane in it!