Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, the unity ticket. Tony Abbott and the coalition just will not listen and they will not listen to the Australian people. Why? Because they do not care. Tony Abbott just does not get it. It is as simple as that. You cannot dress up this budget with another three-word slogan. There is no three-word slogan that could get you out of trouble on this one. But I have got one for you: dump this budget. It is no good. It is rotten. No group, big or small, is safe from Tony Abbott's cuts and broken promises. There were promises to take the pressure off the cost of living, and what do we see? We see the exact opposite. The cost of living is going up. The cuts to child support, family support and the increasing cost of petrol—these are called increasing the cost of living and that is not what was promised. You promised no new or increased taxes. What did we get? The GP tax and higher cost of medicines and petrol. You promised no cuts to health, and what did we get? A $50 billion cut to hospitals. What do the states think about this? They are not too happy about this. There were all sorts of promises. The Liberal Party kept saying there was a fire, a budget emergency, a crisis. That is what they say on one day, and then on the next day they say, 'It is actually all okay; the Australian economy is actually in good shape.' In fact, 23 years of uninterrupted economic growth is not too bad at all.

The Labor Party will stand for something. We will stand for families, for fairness, for universal Medicare, for family support, for the aged, for the sick and for all of those people who expect us, as an opposition, to do the right thing by them—because the government will not!

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