Senator JACINTA COLLINS (3:03 PM) —I move:

The issues involved here are further examples of government misrepresentation and politicisation of the Public Service. Looking at the article in today's Australian newspaper referring to carers and the freedom of information request, I could easily characterise this as volume 4, chapter 186 of the politicisation of the public sector. The case highlights the callous disregard for the circumstances of a family with one baby and acknowledges that even though this child, who required far more medical treatment and remedial treatment than perhaps a child with Down syndrome, was excluded from carer allowance provisions under the government's new regime there was very little regard for what would occur with that child.

Perhaps of greater concern in this piece is a different aspect. Highlighted in a communication from Peter Fisher, a senior Centrelink bureaucrat, is the phrase:

this was the Asperger syndrome issue of last year—

Where have we gotten to so that senior public sector bureaucrats refer to each other and senior Department of Family and Community Services officials with respect to the lines they need to peddle? We know where we are: we now have these senior bureaucrats thinking that to preserve their occupations they need to peddle lines for this government.

Today, the day after 43 former military chiefs and senior diplomats accused the Prime Minister of going to war with Iraq based on a deception and of making Australia a bigger terrorist target, we can see quite clearly that these misrepresentations go well beyond the areas of foreign affairs. All Australians are familiar with the `children overboard' affair and other areas of foreign affairs where concerns have been raised, but this is a very good example of how these concerns extend into areas such as social benefits. It has taken a formal freedom of information process to uncover the truth about how this government were planning to remove 30,000 families from the $90 per fortnight carer allowance. Last year Labor discovered in the government's budget figures that that was how they had costed it. That was the reduction anticipated by this government into future years. Surprise, surprise: perhaps this is the reason the government no longer provide family and community services forward estimates. Those forward estimates highlight the assumptions that the government are making based on the cuts that they intend to make.

The estimate that came out of those figures corresponded to their review of 70,000 families who received carer allowance for their disabled children. The figures seem to confirm to Labor that 30,000 of those 70,000 families would lose this important payment when they are reassessed under the government's tough new disability rules. Senator Patterson got up today and said that Labor had agreed to a review. Yes, we had agreed to a review. What we have not agreed to is their tough new disability rules. That is what this whole debate had been about. When we raised this issue with Senator Vanstone her response was to deal with our questions with utter scorn. It was claimed that Labor were scaremongering, that there was no target for removing payments and that the figure of 30,000 for those that were likely to be removed from the payment just simply was not relevant. What Senator Vanstone did not say was that she had estimates from her own department that 36,000 people would lose the payment.

What else Senator Vanstone did not say was that the Prime Minister was fully briefed on this issue as well. For the Prime Minister to say on Alan Jones's program that he had only just recently had this issue raised with him defies all credibility. As a result of this freedom of information request, we now know that he had very clear and comprehensive advice on the issues and the problems involved here months ahead. But, of course, this is not strange for the Prime Minister who was once known as `honest John'. I ask senators in this chamber whether they can recall the last time anyone referred to our Prime Minister as `honest John'. I suggest it was many years ago, and even then it was obviously a charade. The truth in this case of the government's decision to redefine what constitutes a disability has forced tens of thousands of families off the carer allowance. Nothing in this recent budget is going to compensate for that. (Time expired)