Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

and that is, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, I prefer to have one position on all policy matters, not multiple positions as the Leader of the Opposition has. He has multiple positions on inflation, multiple positions on the question of whether there should be government spending cuts, multiple positions on whether there should be means testing and multiple positions on whether they are going to support or oppose FuelWatch. The reason I am a bit careful about things is that I prefer to be consistent. I would suggest to the Leader of the Opposition that he should be consistent as well.

On the question of the budget and its impact on working families, the key thing is what you deliver into families’ pockets. What can you also help working Australians with? What can you help those pensioners and carers who are doing it tough out there with? Through the budget we have provided levels of support which assist in meeting some of the cost of living pressures which working families are under. If you go to the example of a family of four that I referred to before, $2,680 per year in extra disposable income is what is delivered by this budget outcome. That results in something like $52 per week extra. I contrast that with the proposal by those opposite on excise—whether in fact they are serious about it or not. Let us go to another cameo of a family of four on a combined family income of $105,000 with no private health cover. Put all these measures together and they are better off after this budget to the total of $5,628 in extra disposable income from 2008-09. That is $108.23 per week. These are practical measures.

We know from the family budget that whether it is petrol, whether it is groceries, whether it is rent, whether it is mortgages or whether it is the cost of child care, it is all going up, up and up. As a consequence of that we must ensure that we provide levels of assistance like this to help families balance the budget. That is the first thing. The second is, if you were to quantify what those opposite have put forward on the excise and actually translate it through into a figure of dollar per week assistance to the family budget—I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to do that—what does it actually add up to in terms of the total yield per week or the total yield by the end of each year?

Of course overall the challenge is this: how do you help in delivering assistance to families who are under financial pressure and to Australians doing it tough out there. You can, through the budget, invest in Australia’s future through infrastructure in schools and in hospitals. You can deliver a responsible budget with a $22 billion surplus. I contrast that with those opposite, who have said, ‘Let’s throw economic responsibility out the window and engender instead a $22 billion raid on the surplus.’ That is not responsible economic management; that is absolute political desperation underpinned by the content of the Leader of the Opposition’s budget reply.

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