Page 1175 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
was set up. Of course, it does not assist Mr Mulcahy’s argument and ideology to admit to that in this debate. But as a Green, as someone who is not in the government, someone who is not in the opposition, I can say that that is how it is.
A number of things in the budget got high-profile headlines, but a number of things that were not in the budget which affect the way the commonwealth provides funds to community service organisations and community advocacy organisations are eroding our quality of life and equity in access to services. For instance, at the Senate estimates hearings, Senator Siewert, the Greens senator responsible for industrial relations, examined the staff of the Office of Employment Advocate and found out that they could not justify why they had cut funding to community legal centres for providing workplace advice at exactly the time when more and more demands were being made on community legal centres to provide just that advice. This really makes a nonsense of the federal government’s recent tweaking of AWAs. These changes do not make the headlines, but they affect people’s working conditions.
Mr Mulcahy: Why aren’t they in the industrial commission? These are declining cases. Do your homework.
DR FOSKEY: Mr Mulcahy does not sound like a fan of social investment. He did say that he would like more tax cuts and less money in government, but I find very a strong contradiction in the kinds of things Mr Mulcahy says. He does not want people paying more taxes—and I suppose he is talking about himself here—but he does not like paying for services. I am just not sure what kind of place we would have, what it would like if we had a government with that philosophy running the place.
Does he believe that a well-off society like ours has responsibility to the people who are not doing well in what seems to be a sink-or-swim regime? If you are good, if you can make it, if you can use the devices that are out there to increase your wealth, good on you. But if you have not got that basic collateral even to put you on that ladder—to buy a home, for instance—you are stuffed. That is okay too. I believe that Mr Mulcahy does care about people on the margins. He said he did in his speech, but I just do not know how, as Treasurer, he would look after them. I challenge him in his closing comments to tell us how he would look after our most vulnerable people under a regime that applies the federal government’s approach to the budget.
Mr Mulcahy said that he had been listening to Hugh Mackay. I heard him too as I was driving in. Interestingly, we arrived at exactly the same time. But it just shows that it is not the words that are spoken that dictate meaning, but the ears of the listener. I heard Mr Mackay say that one of the reasons housing is so unaffordable for first home buyers is that those people with the wealth are buying and investing in more property. They have probably got good super as well, but they are covering all their chances and that artificially puts up the prices of homes. That is what I heard, anyway, and that is what I think Mr Mackay was saying. But that is not what Mr Mulcahy heard.
Mr Mackay also said that there is a high degree of full unemployment and underemployment and that the polls were an accurate reflection of the electorate’s view of the Howard government—that it is in trouble. Just in relation to Mr Mulcahy’s continued demeaning of the Greens—he really treats us like that child—it was evident yesterday from his response to my speech that he believes that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .