Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Despite the shenanigans by the government, who will do anything not to debate the budget, this dreadful budget. It has been two weeks since it was handed down, and the people of Australia have made their verdict clear on this most unfair budget.

Australians from all walks of life, from all parts of Australia and from all sorts of political affiliations have said that this budget is the wrong budget for Australia; it is the wrong budget for our economy; it is the wrong budget for our communities.

Australians and Labor acknowledge that Mr Abbott was given a great chance at the last election, but since then he has got it all wrong. The country that Tony Abbott wants to build is not the country that Australians want to see. The Prime Minister is taking Australians down the wrong path. We do not want the Australia that Tony Abbott wants or the future that Tony Abbott wants for our families. Australians are deeply concerned that the Abbott government is creating a permanent underclass. There is no point to being a mean-hearted government.

This great country of ours has taken decades to create and yet this Abbott government budget will tear it down much more quickly. Australians are generous enough. Australians know that this is indeed a lucky country. They know that it is mean and unreasonable to make Australians who earn less than $50,000 a year carry the burden of this budget. Supporters of Labor and supporters of the coalition all understand that no support for young people under the age of 30 who are unemployed will indeed create a society where more of our young people sleep rough.

This budget should put the government on notice. The reaction of the people is: 'Don't push the Australian people too hard. Don't take Australia where we do not want to go.' Australians do not want a beggar society. We do not want our young people sleeping on crates. Look at the Liberals walk out. The truth is too hard for them to hear. We do not want Australians barred from seeing their doctor or seeking lifesaving preventative care.

We recognise that this budget is a fork in the road and there are choices for this parliament to make. Labor will not allow this budget to do to Australia what Margaret Thatcher did to the United Kingdom in the early 1980s. It is a budget drawn up with no understanding of how this country works. It is a budget that says you can have either a tough society or a fair society but you cannot have both.

Labor understand that we can have a sustainable budget. We understand that tough decisions need to be made, that our terms of trade have decreased and that nominal GDP is falling, but we also understand that, in order to make the budget sustainable, we do not have to challenge the basic pillars of Australian life. We do not need to undermine universal health care. We do not need to undermine the Disability Insurance Scheme and the lives lived by people with disabilities and their carers. We can sustain a decent pension and education for all. We can sustain a fair national minimum wage and full employment, along with compulsory superannuation.

The Liberal Party have only one prescription for Australia—it is that of extreme ideology, the vested interests of the Commission of Audit, written by their friends in parts of big business. The Liberal budget of the last fortnight has a view that says that society should leave people to fend for themselves. This budget, however, makes little difference to some of the very privileged representatives who sit opposite us. The talk by Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey that we are all sharing the pain equally, that there is equality of sacrifice, is a fairytale. At the same time that pensioners are asked to lose payments, supplements and concessions we have this government engaging in self-promotional propaganda and advertising. At the same time that the sick and vulnerable will be taxed to go to the doctor we will have millionaires receive $50,000 extra for having a baby. Hardworking Australians are being told that they can work till they are 70, but Abbott cabinet ministers will be able to retire at 60 with a defined benefit pension. Our universities are being deregulated, with access to higher education consciously designed top-down to discourage children from less advantaged backgrounds and their parents from ever having the hope of going to university. We have even got a petrol tax that is so manufactured that every Australian is going to pay it.

Today we discovered in estimates that Tony Abbott's great austere approach of staying at the police academy is in fact costing $1.7 billion. While the battler Mr Abbott sits with multimillion dollar support in what he is doing he would lecture Australians to do much worse. I understand that Tony Abbott is a fan of Downton Abbeyand I understand that he has butlers himself. The resources going to the Prime Minister are not appropriate for a man who would lecture and moralise the rest of Australia.

We believe in a mature, sophisticated, generous society and community. This budget does divide the country. We in Labor put our faith in three elements for Australian progress: we believe that this nation can have in the future a generous and decent safety net; we believe in encouraging the dreams of Australians to be able to do better for themselves and their families; and we have a practical sense of how this economy needs to adapt in the future. This budget makes the difference in Labor values and Liberal values crystal clear. I know the government have been complaining, 'What is the alternative?' Why don't you test your budget at an election and let Australians decide who has the better alternative? There is no chance of this cowardly mob in the government ever submitting this budget to an election before they inflict their pain on Australians.

The government and some of their friends in the conservative columns in some newspapers have been saying that Labor is being negative and that somehow we are not doing what the government wants to do. Let me tell you what negative is. Negative is a new GP tax. Positive is supporting Medicare. I will tell you what negative is. It is making sure that $30 billion comes out of schools in Australia. Positive is what Labor would do and fund our schools according to need so that every child can get a great education. Negative is doubling the cost of degrees, it is increasing the rate of interest of repayments and it is discouraging the dreams of normal people to send their kids to university. Positive is making sure that universities remain in the reach of ordinary Australians and are not just the preserve of the very privileged. Negative is sentencing Australians under 30 who are unemployed to six months without any form of income. That is cost shifting the burden of Australian society and finding employment from government to the shoulders and the backs of the unemployed and their families. Positive is helping Australians find work. Negative is pushing pensioners by decreasing the rate of their indexation. How dare the Treasurer of Australia say that there is no cut to pensions in this country. The facts speak for themselves: $400 million plus is being treated as a cut to the cost of pensions in 2017 in the forward estimates of this government's budget.

We believe in a better Australia than the government do. We understand that the government do not understand the health system of Australia. We understand that this government do not get education. We understand that this government do not get cost-of-living pressures. We get that this government do not understand the regions. And when will the National Party stand up for the regions of Australia that they claim to love? It is all right for them to say things in their local newspapers, it is all right for them to say things in the privacy of their own caucus room, but when will they stand up for country Australia? But the good news for regional Australia is Labor will stand up for country Australia.

Today there have been two very different party meetings held in this building. On this side of the House we met to stand up for Medicare. We met to stand up for kids at school. We met to stand up for pensioners. We met to stand up for ordinary Australians with cost-of-living pressures. But then there was that other meeting, where you had people either sycophantly saying, 'Thank you, Prime Minister, for the worst budget I've ever seen'—I do not often agree with Senator Cory Bernardi—in fact I never agree with him—but I do note that he wrote to supporters and said that this budget is one of the 'dumbest' in decades. Senator Cory Bernardi proving that even a stopped clock can be right once a day.

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