Page 2607 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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Mr Speaker, Sir Robert Menzies talked about the forgotten people. He appealed to middle Australia and won overwhelming endorsement, election after election, in that call. Today, Australian families are again the forgotten people. Labor has forgotten these families. It is families with children that have been hardest hit by high interest rates and inflation, and it is these people who are crying out for the kinds of policies that the Federal Liberal Party will deliver.
I think, Mr Speaker, the best test of the Federal Government's fear of the action plan put forward by Mr Peacock will be the extent to which, in the coming months before the next election, it cribs from that policy. I have no doubt that in the coming months we will see the Federal Government, rather than condemning the policy by avoiding its implications and by eschewing the direction it offers, taking from that direction, attempting to emulate that and attempting to outbid the Liberal Party in its offer to Australian families. I predict that. I am sure that will be the case.
Ministers on the other side of the chamber will have to be laughing on the other side of their faces when that happens. I predict that at that time the Australian electorate will say to itself, "Well, the Liberals offered it to us. The Government is just catching up. If we want a government that pursues Liberal policies, we will vote for a Liberal government".
MR STEFANIAK (10.49): I would like to reiterate the comments made by Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries and indicate to the Minister that this tax package was very well received by the Australian public. I think the Minister implied that at page 2078 of the Hansard of 25 October, where he stated:
The proposed $2 billion tax package for families, which I can only describe as a cynical political ploy targeted at middle-class Australia, is centred around child tax rebates, dependent spouse rebates and the child-care tax rebates for working parents.
I think he implied there that it is targeted at middle-class Australia. It is something that has been very well received. Indeed the opinion polls taken after the tax package was delivered clearly indicated how popular it was with Mr and Mrs Average Australia.
A lot of the support came from traditional Labor areas, seats that were fairly strong Labor seats out there in middle Australia - in Sydney, in the outer western suburbs, and around Melbourne. That dramatic increase in coalition support after the tax package was announced, I think, is indicative of how popular it is with the Australian public.
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