Mr ANTHONY SMITH (5:21 PM) — The Taxation Laws Amendment (Baby Bonus) Bill 2002 fulfils one of the government's key election commitments to Australian families. Like all other election promises, it is being delivered in full and on time. On that note, having heard the previous speaker, the member for Gellibrand, I find it confounding and perplexing that the Labor Party come in here after an election and suggest that the government of the day alter its election policy that it has sought and received a mandate on—but then again that is the Labor way, isn't it?

Like the member for Aston, I am particularly pleased to speak on this bill because its provisions will be greatly appreciated and understood by thousands of families in the electorate of Casey, a neighbouring electorate to the electorate of Aston. Suburbs in Melbourne's outer east, including many in Casey, have grown greatly in the last 10 years or so. Areas that were formerly dairy farms are now housing estates; areas that were orchards are now homes to thousands of new residents in suburbs like Croydon North, Chirnside Park, Kilsyth South and Lilydale Lake. It is precisely these Australian families that this policy seeks to assist.

As previous speakers on this side have outlined, families undergo many significant changes in the lead-up to the birth of a baby. This baby bonus recognises that one of the hardest times for families financially follows the birth of a first child. In these days of dual incomes, families often lose one of their two incomes for a period as the mother or the father gives up or reduces paid employment to care for the child. In addition, there are the expenses that have been outlined by previous speakers—many hundreds of dollars can easily be spent buying essentials and in some cases the associated medical costs can be rather significant. The baby bonus on its own cannot and does not attempt to make up for or completely offset these costs. No government can do that and no sensible government would try. What it does try and do is reduce the cost. That is what these measures do— they try and make a difference, they try and send a signal, they try and lend a helping hand to Australian families as they go through what is a very expensive period of their lives. They try and show young families that we as a country believe that families are the cornerstone of our society. They try and help give families some greater financial independence and control over their own destiny.

When you add up all of the measures this government has taken to assist families and compare them to the bad old days before 1996, the contrast is stark. Importantly, this baby bonus is just one of a specific number of measures this government has taken progressively. Each has been thought out, costed, promised at an election and then delivered on time and in full—again, in stark contrast to when Labor was in power. In the 1996 election we promised to introduce for the first time a family tax initiative to provide specific tax relief for families with young children. It was introduced in full and on time in 1997 at a cost of $2 billion a year. In the year 2000, as part of our tax reform package, we doubled it, providing another $2 billion annually. With this bill we commit a further $1.2 billion over the next four years to further ease the burden on young Australian families. Of course at the same time, as previous speakers have outlined, we dramatically reduced income taxes for average Australian families and, through strong economic management, dramatically reduced their home mortgage interest rates.

The Australian Labor Party will come into this House, as we have seen, and will nitpick about the measure; they may even vote for it. But with what we have seen today the Australian public should be under no illusion about their real motives: they oppose measures such as this because in their hearts they do not like giving tax assistance to families with young children. You do not even need to hear their words on the subject, because their deeds as well as their actions—or, should I say, lack of action—say it all. In their 13 years in government they never once introduced a specific measure to give tax recognition to families with young children—13 budgets, five election campaigns and not a single tax measure specifically for families. In the six years since they have had numerous opportunities to recognise that failure, recognise they had forgotten middle Australia and young families and develop some sensible policies to assist them.

In 1998 they had the chance to make up for that failure. They had the chance in opposition to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and write a new tax policy to take to the election. They had 2½ years to think of something to help families, and what happened? They produced a policy to oppose income tax cuts for families and to keep the rotten, failing, wholesale sales tax, mentioning only two items—orange juice, which they would take wholesale sales tax off, and caviar, which they would put wholesale sales tax on. In addition, they decided to increase the tax on four-wheel-drive vehicles. It was the sort of policy that must have been thought up at five minutes to midnight in the Labor leader's office and written on the back of a beer coaster or, more accurately in terms of modern-day Labor, on the back of a latte napkin. When we came to the last election, when they had had a further three years to think of a policy to help families with kids, again there was nothing—no income tax policies to help families with young children.

Those opposite tell us that all their policies are now under review again, and Labor has yet another chance to recognise its failure. But they will not, and the Australian people should know that they will not. The reason they will not is that they cannot. Many people have wondered why it is that Labor ignores young families when they come to formulating policy. Why is it that, when they were in government, not only did they not have any specific policies to assist young families but they actually hurt them through bad economic management? Why do they not understand the needs of families and understand how important responsible economic policy is in the day-to-day lives of average Australian families? And why do they not understand just how important measures like the baby bonus are as an incentive for families? The reason is simple: Labor no longer represents or understands the needs of families.

You do not have to take my word for it, or the word of the coalition, because there are some people in the Labor movement who acknowledge this and see the problem. There are a couple of orphans in the Labor Party who are honest enough to admit they have got it wrong. One of them is Joe de Bruyn, the national secretary of the shoppies union. Here is just some of what he had to say in an interview following last year's election, where he reflected on Labor's failed family policy over a long period of time. He said that Keating was captured by `femocrat advisers', and he went on to say:

The article, which appeared in the Melbourne Age, tells us he specifically identified the members for Fremantle and Jagajaga and the former member for Dickson, Cheryl Kernot, as the key culprits. He went on to say:

Haven't we seen that today! The article goes on to say that before the 1996 election he warned his party:

He finished by saying:

Those opposite would do well to reflect on Joe de Bruyn's words and admit their failure and their past mistakes and just how out of touch they have become. We have not seen any evidence of it today, but it is early days.

We saw this after the last election, of course, when there was this outpouring of dialogue from Labor identities about this confounding phenomenon they called `aspirational voters'. The Labor Party found that this group of voters—called `ordinary Australians' by the rest of us—had crept up and blindsighted them. They needed new strategies to deal with them and, after weeks of teeth gnashing, hand wringing and brow furrowing about how to grapple with these voters, the member for Lilley came to the rescue. He sprang forth into print to declare that he had solved the mystery, when he reported that he had recently discovered large numbers of aspirational voters and, what's more, he had sighted them: he knew where they hung out. He made the stunning discovery that large numbers of Australian families frequented big shopping centres on Saturday mornings. That's right! It was a big revelation for him and the Labor Party. He even came up with a label for them. He called them the `Westfield mallers' because he had discovered them at a Westfield shopping centre. What a discovery!

Average Australian families with young children are so foreign to the Labor Party now that they have to think up a name for them, as if they are some new species. Now the member for Lilley is swanning—if you would excuse the pun—the suburbs of Australia like some sort of bold adventurer, some sort of ground-breaking pioneer going where no Labor Party figure has ever gone before: into Westfield shopping centres to find aspirational voters. It begs the question, doesn't it: what did the member for Lilley previously think went on in shopping centres? Didn't he twig that something was up when he saw acres of cars parked outside them on weekends? It is quite bizarre, and it is quite a commentary on just how out of touch the Labor Party have become.

I urge those opposite to refrain from their lifelong habit of nitpicking and recognise that, along the other family friendly initiatives this government has implemented that enjoy wide support, this measure should be welcomed and they should unreservedly support it. That is a challenge to the Labor Party, but it is one they should take up. This legislation is important: it builds on past initiatives for families, it will make a real difference to young families at what is a very costly period of their lives, and it deserves support.