I want to talk this evening to some of the people who this government has forgotten; people who live up and down the east coast of New South Wales in places like Lismore, Casino, Batemans Bay and Nowra.

I rise today because I believe that we all have the right to die with dignity. There are no easy decisions at the end of life, and they are decisions that no-one makes lightly.

There is a devastating drought that is gripping many parts of Australia. We've seen media coverage of this recently, and it includes heart-rending imagery of people on the land managing their properties, managing their stock, managing the economic impacts on their families and managing and responding to the economic impacts in their towns.

Australia has a progressive tax system. That's something that we've had since very early in our history, and it lies at the heart of our conception as an egalitarian nation.

If you are after a guarantee that the tax cut will increase wages, you are not going to get it. They can't give it. That is simply not what their modelling tells them.

A few weeks ago, the Labor Party, together with minor parties and crossbenchers, met with Hands Off Our Charities, a group representing organisations as diverse as the Uniting Church, Oxfam and the ACF.

The gender pay gap is a multifaceted problem. It arises from a complex mix of cultural and economic factors, which range from gender segregation in the workplace through the availability of flexible working conditions to outright discrimination.

Early childhood educators perform some of the most valuable work in our society for less than half the average Australian wage. Anyone who has had a child attend child care knows the importance of a good teacher and how central they are to a child's life.

I fear this won't be the last time that I rise in the Senate to talk about the ways employers are working around the safeguards of the Fair Work Act and it won't be the last time that I rise to talk about the ways big companies are seeking to avoid their tax obligations—and, in doing so, seeking to deprive all Australians of the revenue that government needs to provide hospitals, schools, infrastructure and apprenticeships.

This Government is creating a myth—the deserving and non-deserving poor, where poverty and unemployment are recast as personal or moral failure rather than a result of complex people facing complex challenges.