Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian public do not play word games. They do not hedge, they do not engage in clever verbal moves that frequently dominate this demand. They are direct. They were with our side of politics last September. That is why we are on this side of the House. We respect their decision, we accept the umpire's call, but in the election two spotlights are always working the field. The focus is on the two major sides of debate, and the public watched and made up their minds. They took into account the pledges, the commitments and the promises made and their fresh memories are being used as a basis to judge this budget. The public, the same umpire that made the call with us, is speaking authoritatively about the coalition's budget and about the coalition's values as demonstrated by deed in government. Remember that before the election when you turned on the TV you would see the Prime Minister doing two things: he was either wearing a fluoro vest or he was making a promise. These days he does not wear the vest and he does not keep the promises.

I could literally fill up my entire speech recounting the long list of broken promises, but I won't. I'm going to use the speech to talk about how the budget hurts the nation and hounds the Chifley electorate. There are two critical quotes I think are important to remind the House of. One is a quote deliberately and specifically designed to create an impression in the minds of the public about how the Prime Minister would behave in government. The other is a promise built for full effect, purposely repeated, delivered right as the public were about to cast their vote. The first defining quote is this:

It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.

That was spoken by the Prime Minister in 2011 as opposition leader. The second commitment, promise, pledge or vow uttered last September is this:

I want to give people this absolute assurance: no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions and no changes to the GST.

I need not add any commentary or observation of my own. Why? Because the public has made its own mind up based on what they saw and heard. This budget has either transformed or confirmed their view of the Prime Minister. The budget shows that the Prime Minister has gone from being chief promise maker to chief promise breaker, and we can see the reaction within the public domain. After all the sweat and all the effort to sell this budget, this work has delivered nothing. The verdict does not just sit in the minds of the public; it sits on the minds of their own. It is their own side that has been revealed to have said 'the budget is a stinking carcass', and Chifley residents are telling me so too. Some of these residents spoke sharply to me when I was in government and they are now scathing of this government. One emailed:

When I last night saw and confirmed this morning on the internet that the seniors supplement of $60-plus per fortnight ie. $1,560 per annum is going to be abolished as of 1 July 2014, I decided I will never ever vote Liberal again. A government never takes anything away from age pensioners. It will give but never take away.

Let me add his earlier quote:

You will remember me from before the last federal election. Over the past 48 years, I have voted without fail for the Liberal Party both federal and state.

So within the minds of their own side and within the minds of their own voters outside this place, the budget has failed. It has stained the Prime Minister and it is set to smear everything this government touches or does over the term of this parliament. It is a budget that will be spoken about for many years to come, and rightly so.

The public is already speaking loud and clear. For example, Fairfax Media found in a survey of voters overwhelming rejection of some of its key measures: 76 per cent disapprove of the budget's cuts to public hospitals; 62 per cent reject paying more for prescriptions; 61 per cent reject the twice-yearly increase of the petrol excise; and there was substantial rejection of any move to increase the pension age to 70. And the public is sending a signal about their views of the Prime Minister. In other work conducted by Central Media, it was shown that more than two-thirds of respondents, 67 per cent—an increase of 11 percentage points—said that the PM was 'out of touch with ordinary voters'; less than one-third of voters agreed he was trustworthy; and 63 per cent—up five per cent—said he was arrogant.

The trust of the Australian public has been smashed. Their sense of fairness has not only been abused but has been stomped all over by an uncaring coalition government. We knew what was coming in this budget. We got a taste of it in the release of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, MYEFO, before the election. In August, the independently compiled pre-election fiscal outlook showed we would have a deficit of $30 billion. By December when the coalition brought down MYEFO, the deficit blew out by an extra $17 billion. Sixty per cent of the blow-out was attributed to decisions the coalition took.

When the coalition keeps talking about debt and deficit, I did not realise their own guilt was speaking for them. When in opposition, the coalition told us we did not have a revenue problem; we had an expenditure one. In this budget they are bringing in new taxes and tax increases. When in opposition, the coalition told us not to trust Treasury figures. Now we are told we will get to a surplus under the coalition based off the same group of Treasury officials that framed previous budgets using figures that were disputed by the coalition. I do not criticise Treasury here; they are professionals—dedicated and committed. But I do seek to spotlight the duplicity of the government and, through this, seek to show why the public has rejected their first budget.

Australians for weeks if not months before the budget were told they would be equally required to join in the 'heavy lifting' to restore the budget to surplus. Now, look what is occurring. A sole parent with an income of $55,000 with two children—one in primary, one in high school—will face a $20,000 hit to their family budget. By just 2015, this family will face a 10 per cent annual hit to their current family income or more than $5,700 a year. A couple on a single income of $75,000 with two kids—one not yet in school, one in primary school—will face a $2,000 decline in annual family income 2015. By 2017-18, this family will have $7,400 less income than they would have had prior to this budget. I mention these particular groups of families because they make up a big part of the Chifley electorate that I am proud to represent in this place. As I have said numerous times since the budget announcement, the electorate of Chifley, which I represent, has been hit hard and probably harder than many others in country on so many levels.

Much has been said in this place and in the public about the impact of $7 GP tax. The insult to the Australian public was soon followed by the Treasurer referring to that impost of a GP tax as equivalent to two small beers. In defending the indefensible, the Treasurer said:

One packet of cigarettes—

Not cigars, mind you—

One packet of cigarettes cost $22. That gives you three visits to the doctor. You can spend just over $3 on a middy of beer, so that's two middies of beer to go to the doctor.

It's just bizarre to say that in a public space.

In the two weeks since the budget I have had cases of long-time, long-serving doctors come up to me and say that the GP tax is simply an attack on the medical profession. One GP told me last week that his practice does not have the resources necessary to become a tax collection agency for the Abbott government. Then there is the issue of security with cash now being kept on premises, and any new costs to be borne by small practices in changing their security arrangements. What about the valuable time lost with staff forced to travel to the bank to deposit that cash? These small businesses, these GP practices, will line up to be the first to dispute the coalition's claim that it is both the best friend of Medicare and small business. Practices in Mount Druitt, Woodcroft, Glendenning, Rooty Hill and Blacktown have seen drops in the number of patients presenting for help—people scared away from health because of the GP tax. These clinics are SMSing patients reminding them to see the doctor because the GP tax has not come in yet.

Many of the GPs in my area, especially the ones who practise in residential areas, are close to retirement age. They stay in practice to help neighbourhoods that they know will struggle to get medical help close by—suburbs like Whalan, Tregear and Emerton already struggle with a lack of local GP services. Any drop in patient numbers coming through the doors of GPs will bring forward decisions for retirement. They cannot afford to bear those losses; nor should they carry those losses into retirement. The GP tax will not only make health care less affordable, but it will make it less accessible. This week we see reports that imposing on struggling families a $7 hit every time they visit a GP will threaten immunisation rates, and that is a very dangerous move, but that, sadly, is a reality.

What about the billions cut from hospitals in this budget? State governments were already making terrible decisions when it came to health care, for instance, in Mount Druitt—an area where heart disease is a major killer. The New South Wales Liberal government is shutting down our cardiac ward and replacing it with a methadone clinic. We have many avenues available to help those afflicted with substance abuse, but we do not have enough to help us with heart disease. Now the state government has made that decision, it is expected to manage with billions less for its health budget. Remember that in MYEFO the Abbott government callously cut the funds that were expected to be used in securing an MRI for Mount Druitt Hospital, which had been fought long and hard for. I shudder to think what comes next as a result of budget pressure that the Abbott government is loading onto its state counterparts.

It is not that I need to be reminded, but today I looked back over the last census of the Chifley electorate conducted in 2011 at the unemployment rates. Back then, national unemployment was running at 5.6 per cent, while local unemployment stood at nine per cent. It has always been the case that unemployment in our area runs higher than the national average. Chifley's unemployment rate continues well above that average, and youth unemployment is much worse. It is not only a heartless move but a dangerous one to target young unemployed in this budget. It is simply unconscionable to say to an unemployed person under 30 in our area: 'Bad luck if you haven't got a job and, by the way, we won't allow you access to unemployment benefits for six months.' Who among the unemployed can last six months without help while they are trying to find work? What parents these days have the resources to carry an unemployed child during that time, especially with the changes to family tax benefits, the GP tax and the fuel tax straining budgets. What about those young people not lucky enough to have parents to support them? Telling young people still residing at home that they will have to move elsewhere for a work-for-the-dole program is not the answer. It will just not work the way people think it will.

This is a budget that threatens to pressure families beyond limit. Things like the de-regulation of university fees and the huge debt swamp loaded up on the young are causing concerns in the minds of middle Australia who worry about the future of their young and the next generation. That generation will be forced to carry debt well into their working years and will be handicapped in their efforts at the start of their working lives.

Chifley motorists, among all other Western Sydney motorists, will also feel the pain from this budget as fuel excise indexation makes its unwanted return after being frozen for 13 years by then Prime Minister John Howard. On my way to this place this week, I passed service stations where signs heralded unleaded fuel at $1.60 a litre, which is much higher than the point at which the excise was frozen. But its reintroduction will bit and bite again not only when the motorist pays at the browser but also when they buy anything that is dependent on transport moving them to market. The double-whammy effect on households will be that costs will be sent down the line from transport companies, who will also be slugged with the twice yearly fuel indexation. Those costs will flow on to everything you buy. If you try to sidestep that cost by using public transport, you will be hit again because the Abbott government refuses to fund public transport infrastructure that could be used to move people, particularly across Western Sydney. Labor are opposed to fuel excise indexation.

The anger that remains in the community more than two weeks after this budget is clear evidence of its unfairness. It is a budget that squarely puts low- or no-income earners, the elderly or the vulnerable squarely in its sights. Pensioners have been cruelly lined up for attention by this Abbott government. In my home state alone, $450 million in joint funding with the New South Wales government has been axed across the forward estimates that was intended for concessions for pensioners on transport and for council rates, water and electricity bills. To strip pensioners of these simple but vital means of assistance is cruel and it is little wonder state governments are howling about the burdens suddenly placed on them by the Commonwealth. My electorate office has been swamped and people are furious. Pensioners are angry over the fact that the seniors supplement, a vital leg-up for a couple, will be wiped out from September. And there will be the sting in the tail of deeming draw-downs on superannuation and indexation changes that will rob pensioners of future earnings. Welcome to retirement, Abbott government style.

The pain of this budget, the unfairness of this budget and the way that it affects low and middle Australia yet leaves those well off untouched and potentially gaining under a Paid Parental Leave Scheme that is squarely unfair in its architecture and its operation will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of the public, and they should not be forced to bear this cost.

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