Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is gold—the member for Lalor is absolutely right—because Mr McKellar calls this hike a weak and sneaky and tricky action. That reflects exactly what this is—it is weak, sneaky and tricky and it rubs salt into my constituents' wounds because it adds to the growing list of financial pressures and the burden of living costs in what is one of the most socioeconomically disadvantaged electorates in Australia. People living in my electorate drive cars—we are outer-metro and we drive cars. We need to drive cars. A lot of my constituents may not be very wealthy but they need to drive their car. As if the cost of petrol is not already steep enough, my constituents are now going to be slugged with this unfair petrol tax which the Prime Minister does not have a mandate for. The Prime Minister sought no mandate from the electorate to slug them with this increase in petrol prices.

Since this budget was announced my electorate has faced a continuous onslaught of proposed budget measures that have hurt them and will continue to hurt them significantly. I have spoken about these measures many times before. There is the GP tax, pension cuts, the abolition of Family Tax Benefit B, forcing young job seekers to go without income support for six months at a time, moving young people onto lower income support payments and cutting payments to war veterans—and now we have the fuel tax. My constituents cannot take much more of this. The situation for their family budgets and overall prospects is dire enough without these additional taxes. This is not good news for my electorate, and unfortunately the news keeps on getting worse.

The NATSEM analysis is important in demonstrating exactly what is happening to the people who live in my electorate. According to NATSEM, the average family in Calwell will lose about $783 a year as a result of this unfair budget. I want to go through the budget's average impact in dollar terms in the suburbs and neighbourhoods of my electorate. That is what matters—what matters is how the budget will impact on the people who live in the neighbourhoods of my electorate. Families are looking at a loss of $355 in Tullamarine, $805 in Keilor East, $532 in Keilor, $524 in Taylors Lakes, $571 in Sydenham, where there are lots of young families, $1,226 in Meadow Heights, $544 in Gladstone Park and Westmeadows, $1,364 in Broadmeadows, $1,327 in Campbellfield and Coolaroo, $1,032 in Roxburgh Park and Somerton, and $478 in Greenvale and Bulla. These are costs that the people who live in my electorate cannot shoulder—they cannot afford to be hit with these costs. How much more is this government intending to bleed my constituents? How much more are they going to tax my constituents in order to fill their coffers? It is a legitimate question and I am not ashamed to ask it. (Time expired)

See this speech in context