Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I am especially grateful to be able to respond so soon to Senator Buttimer, who seems very anxious to hear what I have to say in this debate. The Social Welfare Bill builds on the announcements made in the budget, and Senator Buttimer and others are correct in that I have had the opportunity for the past five years of being an Opposition spokesman trying to dissect proposals and make better ones.

This has never been a particularly easy job but some budgets, such as those of 2002 and 2003, were occasions when arguments on the Opposition side could be made very easily. I have remarked in previous contributions that the Combat Poverty Agency has done a number of analyses of budgets since 1997. They have outlined that the first six budgets were socially regressive and the seventh was neutral.