QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator COLBECK (Tasmania) (15:14): I have to say that was one of the more extraordinary question times that I have seen. The denial of the government of the reality that Australians are feeling could not have been any more on display, and we've just seen it from those opposite in response to this motion. They say, 'Don't invoke Bill Kelty'—well, Bill Kelty doesn't even believe you.
Bill Kelty goes out into the media and says things like: You had the treasurer say workers should be happy because their wage share is increasing, but their real wages are falling. It's just ridiculous and people get offended by it. They can't pay the bills, and you tell them your share of GDP is growing.
Australians understand that their real wages are going backwards. It doesn't matter what tricky language the government uses in relation to this. Australians understand—and Australians don't want the government's understanding; they want the government to do something about it.
The government, in everything that it does, is driving the economy backwards. When you get the mastermind of reforms, as he is regarded in the media, in the last couple of days calling out the government for their failures—when Bill Keelty has to come and call it out—you know you've got a problem. Even in the face of that, the government cannot bring themselves to admit that there's an issue here.
When a Labor luminary like Bill Kelty comes out and says that this is what's going on, you would think that Labor would be honest enough to acknowledge what he says, but they won't. It didn't matter what issue was raised in question time, the denial, the obfuscation and the misinformation were profound. That was no more apparent than in the question asked in respect of pensioners and health insurance costs, where the effect of the government's policy is to effectively cut the pensions of a million Australians by $5 a week for singles and $15 a week for couples.
That's the effect that the health insurance changes will have on up to a million pensioners, and the minister says it's the right decision. The minister in question time today said, 'Some might not welcome this decision.' I can tell you, when a million pensioners are effectively having their pensions cut by this government and its policies, I bet they won't welcome it.
Why would they? Labor members should be extremely uncomfortable about the fact that, for up to a million pensioners, there's $5 a week, and $15 for couples, coming off their pensions because of the changes that Labor have made to private health insurance policies, and that's at the lower end of the scale. It's a mean and nasty trick that Labor use, with tricky language, to try and get out of this, and they should be ashamed.
(Time expired)