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

There is the agriculture minister. You have done enough this week, son! Standing orders should be suspended because we have an education minister who is not a fixer; he is a failure. He is arguably the worst higher education minister that we have ever seen since we had higher education in this country: $100,000 degrees—what a stupid idea; and $2 billion from vocational education, skills and training. The vandalism that they are committing to Australia's schools by cutting $30 billion from schools over the next 10 years is a disgrace.

Standing orders should be suspended because the health ministers have no plan for health. What mind would have dreamed up a GP tax on the sick and vulnerable! Fifty billion dollars cut from Australia's hospitals. That is an important point to remember. This government's last budget, which none of the 'would-be's, 'could-be's or 'never-were's opposite have repudiated, is a $50 billion cut to our hospitals. The damage that this government is doing to Australia with their lack of an economic plan—to our hospitals—is absolutely appalling.

The real problem here is that this government, unlike predecessor governments of Liberal or Labor persuasion, have no adoptable strategy. They cannot convince the Senate. They act as if having a Senate not of their own political persuasion is a new phenomena. For many years in Australian history there has been a Senate of a different political complexion to a government. But this is the first time we have had a government who has not got an adoptable economic plan. Australia has no budgetary plan because this government has no budgetary plan that Australians want.

The Prime Minister, the man who loves to get up and say one thing and then apologise—'I'm really sorry'—then do it again and apologise again, as if life is one huge, 'I make a mistake. I am a fool then I repent.' This is not good enough—your budgetary policies. Your $6,000 cuts for families are a bad idea. Your $100,000 degrees are a broken promise. Your cuts to pensions are an outrage. Your cuts to hospitals and schools—$80 billion worth in the next 10 years—are absolute economic vandalism.

If you want to take these rotten ideas to an election, please do it. Give the Australian people an opportunity to have a say on your policies, rather than trying to intimidate the Senate with your broken promises. I also advise the Prime Minister that it does not matter when you bring on the election, the battlelines are most certainly drawn. You love to talk about the way the Liberals can do this and the Liberals can do that—you have not done very much in the last 18 months. You have taken 18 months of the nation's life and wasted the time of the nation.

We believe in universal health care versus your GP cuts, and your GP tax and your health care cuts. We believe in access to higher education for all, not $100,000 degrees. We do not share the narrow, extremist philosophy of the education minister, who says that people who have not been to university begrudge paying taxes for those who have. I have never met a parent or a grandparent who begrudged it.

This is a government with no economic plan, and you most certainly do stand condemned.

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