Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I agree—shame!—because they are the rorted figures.

Mr Whiteley interjecting—

If ever there were a strategic shame possibly confected from our side—and, if the member for Hunter set that one up, good on you—that was that moment. It is an extraordinary thing. Those debt figures are based on the removal of an expenditure cap, a cap on growth in spending. If you remove the cap on growth in spending, what happens? Spending goes up—of course, it does. They are shifts in the change of budget parameters that were put in place by the Treasurer and the finance minister.

In the same way, the Treasurer and the finance minister pretended that unemployment would never return to trend. But, in fact, in years three and four, they have got unemployment under this budget presuming that, for years three and four of this budget, unemployment will actually go up to 6.25 per cent in year three and then to six per cent in year four, notwithstanding that it is running at 5.8 per cent now. So the actual plan that this budget has is a plan for higher unemployment, because, by putting figures like that in, it meant that they could argue that there was a debt problem.

What they did with that budget emergency is completely transparent. They have used that confected budget emergency as an excuse to break promises that they knew that they were going to break. No-one opposite should think that they will get a single week for the rest of this term without hearing the words: 'no cuts to health'—which was a lie; 'no cuts to education'—the same; 'no changes to pensions'—the same; and 'no cuts to the ABC or the SBS—the same'. Each and every one of those has come to nothing. Those opposite claimed that the one thing that they would bring to Australian politics was a capacity to deliver on promises. That ended the night this budget was delivered. Those on this side know that the worst thing is not simply the way they broke the promises but who will be hurt by those broken promises. Those promises that have been broken are levelled squarely at those who can least afford it. They are levelled squarely at those on the lowest incomes. They are levelled squarely at people who will now pay the GP tax and who will now suffer in every way.

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