Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today's MPI is about the broken promises of the Abbott government in its first year—and what a litany of broken promises it is. The most famous of them all is the promise to be a no surprises and no excuses government. What an absolute rubbish, rubbish, rubbish statement that is. There have been plenty of surprises and nothing but excuses from this mob opposite, who want to turn up every question time and blame Labor. Well, news flash: you have been in government for a year, and it is time to start taking some responsibility and start talking about what you are doing for the Australian people.

And let's talk about what you are doing for the Australian people. What are you doing for the Australian people? Those are the surprises that we have been amply provided with by the Abbott government. Like the promise of no surprises and no excuses, there were some other very important promises made. They were promises that were made in an attempt to convince voters that they had nothing to be worried about in electing an Abbott government. Unfortunately, voters had plenty to be worried about in electing an Abbott government. There were promises like: there will be no cuts; there will be no cuts to education; there will be no changes to the pension; and there will be no cuts to higher education. Those promises were so ridiculous!

I might add that there were a few promises made in my by-election campaign earlier this year, and one of them was there was not going to be a GP tax—'We are not considering a GP tax.' I remember that pretty well. I was a candidate for a by-election and I had the Prime Minister and the foreign minister swan into my town to tell voters, 'There's nothing to see here; there ain't going to be a GP tax.' I was apparently scaremongering about it—and then what happened? Was there a GP tax? Yes, there was a GP tax—and it is a GP tax that is going to hurt people's ability to go to the GP and will see people not going to the GP when they should. And what is going to be the outcome of that? That will mean bad health outcomes for people in this country. It is reckless policy, and that mob over there ought to be ashamed.

What else have we seen from a government who promised before the election that there would be no changes to pensions? Today I got a message on my Facebook page and it said the following: 'Terry, will you please stand up for we pensioners today in parliament?' Yes, I will stand up for pensioners today in parliament, because no-one on that side of the House is going to stand up for pensioners. What are they going to do for pensioners? They are going to change the indexation rate so that every time the pension is indexed it gets harder and harder for pensions to meet the cost of living for pensioners—something which those opposite ought to be ashamed of.

So, not only are they going to slug pensioners with a GP tax and slug people with the petrol tax increase that they want to impose on people; they are also going to make it harder for pensioners to meet their costs of living. They are going to overturn a change that Labor brought out in 2009—a change to help pensioners meet their costs of living. That mob want to take it away from pensioners. We will stand up for pensioners. The people on this side of the House will stand up for pensioners, because we care about pensioners—unlike that mob over there, who think they are born to rule.

When you stand up in this House and say that Labor were a tenant of government—you are claiming that Labor were a tenant when we held government—the implication is that your mob are the landlords. Your born to rule mentality is exposed for everyone to see. You think you own government, but I have news for you: the Australian people are the landlords of government and they are going to pass judgement on you for these outrageous broken promises that you have made. You ought to be ashamed.

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