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

Whilst we have to wait until 7.30 to hear the budget speech, we already know a fair bit about this budget and what Australians can expect. We know that this budget is conceived in desperation. It is conceived by a Prime Minister under pressure and a Treasurer under siege in witness protection. We suspect that Joe Hockey's last budget will be as bad as his first budget. This budget is not about the Australian people. It is about one job; it is about saving Tony Abbott's job. A Mission: Impossible script could not have dreamed up a tougher mission for Tom Cruise than has been dreamed up for poor old Joe Hockey. The mission, should he choose to accept it, is to save Tony Abbott. You can just hear the brains trust of the Liberal Party: 'We know last year was terrible, so we have got nothing to fall back on there.' I feel as though we Australians live in a parallel universe when I hear our Prime Minister say that last year was so successful. If last year was successful, I would hate to see what failure looks like.

They have come up with a plan: they have discovered child care—well, they have sort of discovered child care, as we will unpack. They have put in their big hitter, Scott Morrison. Scott Morrison is the sort of guy you do not want shadowing you, because you know he will be sitting in your seat next. His job is to rescue child care and to rescue Tony Abbott. What is the plan that they have cooked up? It is a ripper. First of all, forget everything Tony Abbott has ever said. We wish we could, but we just cannot. I heard that marvellous piece of contorted grammar from the Prime Minister when he was asked about what he believed. We have a transcript, because we love recording Tony Abbott's first words straightaway. When we asked him how he reconciles his last comment with his current comment—and, goodness knows, with what he will say tomorrow—he said:

… you could go back 10 or 15 years—

actually, it was a lot more recent than that, Prime Minister—

and find some statements that they have made—

that means the Prime Minister—

which were sincerely made and believed then—

as if this bloke has ever sincerely believed anything in his life—

but which are no longer quite believed in exactly the same way.

If it wasn't true it would have won a Logie for comedy.

What they have done with the childcare policy is say, 'All right, we love little children.' So all of a sudden there has been an invasion of coalition ministers at childcare centres around Australia, and then what happens—

An opposition member: Scary!

Yes, just what a three-year-old needs: Scott Morrison beaming down on you to give you a hug! Fair's fair, you have to give points to people for trying, except for NRL analogies. They have worked out that they want to give some parents who have children between two, three and four years of age some money. That sounds all right initially, doesn't it? And they have discovered that they like the idea of women working. That is another breakthrough—sort of. But then we have the detail. These guys on the other side have the disease of trickiness. Even if they get part of a concept correct they always stuff it up with their own trickiness. The way they are going to look after child care in Australia—I do not know why anyone did not think of it beforehand, but when we step it through you will realise why no-one ever did—is that obviously children stop needing to eat, drink, wear a school uniform or do anything after the age of six. What will happen in their childcare fantasyland is that they are going to take away thousands of dollars in family payments, as the member for Hotham pointed out to the Prime Minister, from the parents of children who have reached six years of age. Why didn't the childcare experts of the world ever dream up the idea of robbing parents whose children have turned six and giving that money to the parents of children who are not yet six! The problem with that logic is that they do turn six. Here we have a policy where the only way they can pay for Tony Abbott's Mission: Impossible rescue package is by backing in last year's failed cuts. Remember, they think they were successful and they really do like them.

Of course, there is the other measure, and this is what the Prime Minister struggles with. He said, rather famously, that he believed—oh my Lord, as soon as he says he believes, you know he doesn't; that is sort of like code, in Abbott language, believe (not believe):

Providing more government benefits to employed mothers than to stay-at-home ones—

remember that, National Party? You occasionally have a little bit of vertebral fortitude—

is not only unfair—

see, he does have a passing knowledge of the word 'unfair'—

but it's going to strike many people as an attack on the traditional family.

Remember Tony Abbott, the man of principle? He, more than any other in the 20th century, 21st century and 22nd century, was going to be a politician who kept his word? He cannot even hold his own position for a matter of some years without changing.

But it does not stop there. We have looked at their childcare rescue plan. It involves funding cuts. It involves taking money from some parents to give back to others, who, by the way, will not get that money until 1 July 2017, although families will get the cut now. It is going to be funded by cuts that have not even passed the Senate. It is 'funny money'. It is taking money from some to pay to others, but it does not solve the issue. All along, one thing that working women in this country know is that, when Tony Abbott says he wants to deliver something, not only will he not deliver it; he will not keep his promises.

Let us move onto paid parental leave. Never have I seen such blatant hypocrisy. This man is a weathervane on steroids. He is like Beetlejuice—Michael Keaton is the actor—whose head could spin 360 degrees. That is what this Prime Minister is doing when it comes to paid parental leave. Let us track the zigzag pattern, the crazy quilt pattern, of the Prime Minister on paid parental leave. Remember, it was going to be introduced over his dead body. Then he said that he had had a change of heart, a Damascene conversion, to use an analogy he would be familiar with. We picked him up on it today, saying, 'Once upon a time, you were against paid parental leave and then, all of a sudden, you were going to be the world's greatest champion of paid parental leave.' He said, 'Circumstances have changed and now I've got to go back to taking 80,000 mums off paid parental leave.' What he tried to imply was that his love of the rolled-gold paid parental leave scheme for millionaires was something that he thought about way back in the dim, distant past of Tony Abbott, and that more recently, when he had a look at the books, he realised his program was over the top and silly, which, to be fair, we all knew, those opposite all knew, everyone knew.

The Prime Minister is right: we do research some of his comments for a good laugh every now and again. He did not talk about his paid parental leave scheme—his rolled-gold scheme—back in the dim, distant past when he was writing a book called Battlelines, which was really more fiction than fact, because he has not even stuck to what he said there. In a press conference last year—2014, not 2004, not 1994 and not 1954, where he seeks some of his inspiration and views—this man who would save the nation with his great confidence-building budget compared himself to Richard Nixon.

Opposition members interjecting—

Possibly! The comparison was with Nixon when he went to China. He said:

… conservatives thought: 'My God, has he suddenly abandoned the faith?"' … "Progressives thought: 'My God, is China no longer a progressive country?'

The clear implication is that the Prime Minister of Australia said that his backing of paid parental leave was as momentous as America's recognition of China.

Well, Tony Abbott never even got off the runway, because he has dumped that policy. When it comes to paid parental leave, this is a person who has now said that the only way you can have paid parental leave in this country is that women who have already negotiated it as a term of their employment lose it, or they lose government support. Kate Carnell, the boss of the employers federation, has said, 'Well done, Tony Abbott—you are just going to lead to a strike on employers paying any of this benefit.' It will all come back to the taxpayer. Yet again, Tony Abbott, bungle, bungle, bungle.

The real thing we expect to see from the budget tonight is that the colours of this party have not changed; their intentions have not changed. You can hear the gnashing of teeth and understand their frustration at night-time, when they look at each other and ask why would the people in the Senate and Labor not simply roll over, lie doggo, and accept their unfair budget last year? The Prime Minister let the cat out of the bag in debate. He said that Labor has not gone past the 2014 budget. Nor have the Liberals. They would still put up their rotten changes to universities, with $100,000 degrees. They are still taking $80 billion out of health and schools. They still desperately want to slug pensioners—they just think that they have to change tactics. This is the mob who are no longer trying to come in the front door to do over Australian families—they are going to try to go around the side. Labor is awake to them.

Last year I believe this government in their budget were sufficiently arrogant, sufficiently full of their own hubris and puffed up with their own importance, that they believed they could say and do anything—as is their right, they believe, as the natural party of government. They got a shock last year—the Australian people and the Labor Party stood up to them. And we will do it again. We will evaluate the budget tonight. They have done all their selective leaks, they have embarrassed poor old Hockey on the way through—hung him out to dry. But tonight we will do two things. First of all we are going to play a little bit of budget bingo. Joe Hockey said the word 'fair' four times last year. I will bet you in budget bingo he will say 'fair' more than that this year. More importantly than that, we will make sure we fight for the future. That is what Labor does.

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