The treasurer is underway now in his traditional post budget address at the NPC. Scott Morrison opens the address on the welfare package in the budget, with an anecdote about a young homeless man who had managed to turn his fortunes around with the help of a medium sized business.
Scott Morrison:
He is no longer homeless, he is in private rental accommodation and he is supporting himself. Small business growing, backing young people, giving them the chance - everybody wins. Everybody wins.
Parke also calls for a standing national integrity commission to look under rocks at the Commonwealth level, to obviate the need for expensive, ad hoc, royal commissions.
Parke doesn’t miss in this farewell. She decries the boats debate. She says it’s infused with faux concern for people drowning at sea in order to justify draconian policies.
Melissa Parke:
Offshore detention is a festering wound that is killing people and eroding our national character and reputation.
Labor MP Melissa Parke is making her valedictory now. Presumably this is why Sarah Hanson-Young is in the chamber. Parke has been a consistent critic of her own party’s positions on asylum policy and on national security. A number of colleagues from Parke’s Labor left faction are there to hear her farewell.
Sharman Stone tears up at the end of her contribution, saying she leaves parliament happy with the achievements and sorry about the problems that persist.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion