HANSARD EXTRACT
| Adjournment:
Government Policies |
| 9 August 2006 |
Mr HAYES
(Werriwa) (7.49 p.m.)—It
is now official that this government has abandoned
Western Sydney.
The residents of Western Sydney, who once may have thought that they
had a special place in the heart of this government, have now woken
up to the way that they have been treated. It is clear that Western
Sydney Liberal MPs have not been standing up for them. The member
for
Lindsay
cannot be bothered turning up to party room meetings to present the
views of her constituents. While she might be the mouthpiece for the
Prime Minister in leadership stoushes, she is certainly not the
mouthpiece for Western Sydney in this place. When was the last time
that you heard the member for Lindsay, the member for Macarthur or
the member for Greenway spout anything other than the government
line on issues such as petrol pricing, interest rates or industrial
relations?
My Western Sydney Labor colleagues have known
for some time that the duplicity of Liberal members for
Western Sydney would be exposed sooner or later. We knew that they
could not keep up this carefully crafted facade forever. We know
that Liberal members prefer to look down on the people of
Western Sydney. They might like their votes but they do not
like the people. The contempt that has been shown to the people of
Western Sydney, which lies at the soul of the Liberal Party, was
laid bare this week.
The member for Lindsay, before she was
silenced by her boss, belled the cat when she said that the
Treasurer lacked empathy for the battlers of
Western Sydney.
But the member for Wentworth took lack of empathy to new heights. On
Monday he took it to a new level altogether when he said that
interest rate rises were overdramatised. I still hear that he is
wondering why people were so shocked by his comments. His glib
comment came from the very soul of the Liberal Party. It showed just
how uncaring this government is.
Interest rate rises certainly hurt the people
of
Western Sydney. They hurt families in
Western Sydney. They hurt families with mortgages, they hurt
families with credit card debt and they hurt families whose budgets
are strained by high petrol prices and increased private health
insurance premiums. They hurt every single person who believed in
the government’s false promises and half-truths about interest rates
during the last election. Interest rates will certainly hurt
families who lose their overtime payments and penalty rates as a
result of the government’s extreme and unfair industrial relations
laws.
And how do these Western Sydney Liberal MPs
respond? The member for
Macarthur
told his constituents that he has no problem with jobs that do not
pay overtime, do not allow for meal breaks and do not pay penalty
rates. You can read that for yourselves in the paper. He went on to
say that if they do not like it then they do not have to take the
job. He said that they can always start their own small business. I
was stunned when I read his ignorant comments on industrial
relations as a whole. The letters page in the Macarthur
Advertiser bears out that I was not alone, as these comments
have generated a huge response from the people of Campbelltown. The
arrogance and the unfeeling, uncaring and uncharitable nature of the
Liberal Party and its members were on display once again.
Major cracks are appearing in this government.
It is struggling to keep the true feelings of its members from the
voters of
Western Sydney. It is struggling to come to terms with the fact that
the people of Western Sydney and the suburban areas throughout the
country feel betrayed by this government. Residents of Western
Sydney, workers of Western Sydney, know that they are not sharing in
the prosperity that this government crows about. They know that
their families, their friends and their neighbours are not well off
to the point that the government claims, and they know that they are
at the sharp end of the government’s extreme industrial relations
changes. They also know that they are going to be the ones who will
lose their overtime payments and their penalty rates and who will be
forced to sign unfair AWAs. They know that Work Choices for them
means no choices. They are scared and they have every right to be.
The people of Western Sydney also know that
this is the direct result of failed representation by Western Sydney
Liberal MPs. Western Sydney coalition MPs have not stood up for them
or for their families. If the member for
Lindsay
thought she was skating on thin ice and doing some fancy footwork on
the Channel 9 program, wait to see what she has to do at the next
election. (Time expired)
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