Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. He actually breached a budget embargo, releasing the presentation well before the budget speech. Yesterday we heard that 2½ thousand people have looked at that video, so it cost almost $40 per viewing. There is value for taxpayers!

The budget also created a $5 billion incentive fund. But the problem with that is that it wasn't new money either. The $5 billion came from the Building Australia Fund and the education infrastructure fund. Paying someone else to do the heavy lifting does not constitute investing in infrastructure. The fact is that the infrastructure package in this budget is a con—a collection of already funded projects and cuts to fund other projects, which have not even been tested by experts to verify that they represent value for money. There are other cuts in there as well, such as the upgrading of remote and regional airports—gone, that program, from the next financial year. The previous government, of course, was concerned about addressing funding in our cities for public transport as well as for roads. The fact is that this government has walked away from those commitments.

I have heard the Treasurer say before that the core of his approach to economics is the idea that if you increase the tide all boats rise. I was reminded of the words of Indian politician Rahul Gandhi, who once said: 'A rising tide doesn't raise people who don't have a boat. We have to build the boat for them. We have to give them the basic infrastructure to rise with the tide.'

That is the problem with this budget. It is a budget which helps those who have and punishes those who have not. It puts in place policies that expose all the prejudices of the existing government. My message to the government is that it is not the fault of the Labor Party that the Prime Minister was too lazy to frame genuine policy when he was the Leader of the Opposition. Nor is it the fault of the poor, the disabled, the sick, state premiers or young people—all of whom are bearing the brunt of the budget decisions. As opposition leader, Mr Abbott clearly took a conscious decision to turn the coalition into the noalition. (Time expired)

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