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

Whether it is for one month or six, Labor will never support leaving young people looking for work to survive on nothing. We will never sign off on the Prime Minister's plan to push young people into poverty and worse.

The meanness of spirit in the last budget lives on in this one, the same spitefulness in all things great and small—$2 billion in cuts to health and aged care hidden in the fine print; $100 million cut from Indigenous housing; $70 million cut from the dental care for veterans; $130 million from the dental care for children; and a $1 million cut from a program that put seatbelts in school buses in the regions.

The coalition has an impeccable eye for detail and this government's second budget has one more thing in common with its first: it creates divisions and fault lines in our community. Remember the 2014 lifters versus the leaners? They are at it again, this government—cutting family support to pay for child care; pitting mums and dads of three-and four-year-olds against mums and dads of six-and seven-year-olds; and forcing nurses, retail workers and police to choose between more time at home with their baby or a cut to their pay.

In just one year, this Prime Minister has gone from being the staunchest defender of paid parental leave, his signature scheme, to vilifying tens of thousands of women who rely upon it; from praising women of calibre to demonising rorters and frauds—that is how quickly this Prime Minister reverts to type about women in the workplace. It confirms what we have always known: no employee, no employer, no family can ever trust this Prime Minister with their rights at work.

Nowhere on Tuesday night did the Treasurer utter the words 'bracket creep'. He should have, because bracket creep is the biggest driver of revenue in his budget. The Treasurer should have told Australians that, for every dollar that the government keeps in spending cuts, $2 will be collected through higher taxes. In a lazy budget, Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey are getting inflation to do their dirty work. Eighty cents in every dollar and the rise in revenue comes from bracket creep—the invisible hand in the pocket of every Australian worker.

Along with rehashing the manifest unfairness of last year's measures and the abuse of bracket creep, the third cardinal sin of this budget is the government's unconscionable attacks upon the states of Australia and the people who depend upon the services they provide. There is no atonement—not even a trademark insincere mea culpa from the Prime Minister nor a tear from his Treasurer about the cuts to the states. Like the last budget, this budget cuts $80 billion from Australia's school and hospitals. This breaks an old and a new Abbott promise: not just no cuts to health and no cuts to education but a breach of his promise before this budget not to hurt families.

Prime Minister, let me tell you something on behalf of the families of Australia: when you cut $30 billion from our schools, you hurt families. When you cut $50 billion from our hospitals, Prime Minister, you hurt families. When you close hospital beds, rob our kids of the resources they need and when you put nurses and teachers under more pressure, you hurt families.

Right now, we need to work with the states more than ever. We need a new approach. For a decade, capital investment in mining has been running at eight per cent—four times the long-run rate. Now it is reverting to the long-term average of around two per cent of GDP, and there has been a 17.3 per cent fall in spending on public sector infrastructure in the last year.

The Commonwealth must use its fiscal horsepower to work with the states and private investors to provide more affordable housing, to develop our cities and towns. Labor will bring certitude and direction. We will bring confidence—that is what we intend to do. We believe in confidence for new rail and roads; ports and bridges; better social housing; smart energy grids; efficient irrigation projects; and of course the best digital infrastructure.

New infrastructure projects boost demand in the short-term and they lift supply over the long term, creating jobs and generating national momentum. But this budget does nothing to address the funding cut from the important public transport projects like the Melbourne Metro or Brisbane's Cross River Rail. It continues to overlook higher-return productivity-enhancing improvements like Managed Motorways, a series of overdue improvements to Melbourne's south-east.

This is the first budget in living memory with not one significant infrastructure project funded. In government, Labor funded all 15 projects on the priority list: the Pacific Highway in New South Wales, the Regional Rail Link in Victoria; and the Gold Coast Light Rail.

This government has not funded a single priority project; in fact, they have abolished the funding for three and have ripped away half of Infrastructure Australia's budget. Inaction undermines confidence and hurts state budgets, and we all pay a price.

More of us spend more time stuck in a car on our way to work. We need a circuit-breaker for investment and a commitment to put the nation's interest at the heart of nation building. Just as the Reserve Bank of Australia is the independent voice at the centre of monetary policy, we will put Infrastructure Australia at the centre of capital investment. This will bring greater rigour, transparency and authority to give investors greater confidence.

Infrastructure Australia will drive projects that deliver benefits to our economy and our community; commercial viability; and the capacity to enhance national productivity. I want the experts at Infrastructure Australia to play a more active role in getting projects properly financed, to act as a broker, to bring together construction companies, long-term investors like super funds, and, most importantly, state governments to get projects underway. Infrastructure Australia priority projects will receive first funding.

Prime Minister, in government I will do what you have proved to be incapable of: we will consult with the opposition of the day on every appointment to the Infrastructure Australia board, to put the national interest first. Prime Minister, Australians are sick of the petty partisanship around appointments. We can and will do better.

Infrastructure must be at the centre of any plan for Australia's future. It is too important to be held hostage to short-term politicking or squabbling. Good infrastructure makes our cities more liveable, our regions more accessible and our economy more productive. It is essential to the jobs and the economy of the future, to where we will live and to the lives that our families will enjoy. There is a role for the Commonwealth in the future of our cities. By 2025, an extra 4½ million people will be living in our cities, and making our cities more productive, more sustainable and more liveable is a key responsibility of the government.

Prime Minister, when it comes to small business, I will offer you another thing you never extended to your opponents: cooperation. There are measures in this budget that Labor will support in the national interest. We will cooperate on national security. We will cooperate on overdue drought relief for our farmers and we will cooperate on small business. But when Labor proposed a tax cut for small business, you opposed it. When Labor implemented an instant asset write-off, you abolished it. When Labor introduced loss carry-back, you unwound it. But I am not like you; I want to create jobs and grow the economy.

Those in the gallery applauding—

See this speech in context