SENATOR BARNABY JOYCE
The Nationals Senator for Queensland

Labor backbenchers discover the financial situation of their parents

“Well, it appears that after talking to their parents, some Labor backbenchers realise the dire position in which the Budget leaves Australian pensioners.

“Although Mr Georganas says pensioners receive $250 per week (The Australian 21/5/08), this is an approximate average amount and not the actual amount individual pensioners receive. A single pensioner receives $273 per week but, if they are partnered, each receives $228 per week.

"However, Mr Georganas does have the sentiment right and all Australians should ask themselves this question – how could I live on that?

“In the charge to become "fiscal conservatives", the Labor Party has deserted its philosophical base. The charge Labor always brought, that the National Party was the door mat of the Liberals, could easily be laid at the Labor Left. They truly are a square peg in a very round hole and the new source of a range of Parliamentary corridor jokes, generally from their own Labor team.

“The Labor Party has become something entirely different when it requires people on the conservative side to go into bat for greater social security. The Labor Left has confused party discipline with the cowardly desertion of a key section of its constituents.

"Fellas, romantic dissertations of "comrade" do not put butter in the fridge of pensioners, and, if you do not get off your backsides and go into bat for the elderly, who rely on the pension, then you should be scrubbed like an oily rag."

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