Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

Come to terms with it, backbench! You will all be held to account for it. Let's look at the reality: $30 billion cut from the school budget.

Now, your leader gets up here every day and says, 'No, no, no—look at the budget papers! You don't have to look very far.' Look at the budget papers! It has a negative in front of it—just look at page 7 on the budget overview. It has a negative—that means 'cut'. Do not believe the lies that this man who sits here tells you. He lied to the public before the election and he is lying to you now. And he is lying to the Australian people and this parliament about lying!

Mind you, perhaps it is not deliberate—I suspect he is not very good with numbers and he does not know that a minus sign means 'cut'. Perhaps that is the answer. That could be the answer; I would believe it. But, backbenchers, please pay attention: you will be held to account. They have abandoned the Gonski model and every school in Australia will now be, on average, $3.2 million worse off, including schools in your electorates. Check the budget papers, if you do not believe me. But do not believe this man, who will say anything—anything!—to keep his position and to win an election.

Look at the promises of no cuts to health. The GP tax came along really quickly in the first budget. Mind you, he said there would be no cuts to health prior to the election and then he said there would be no cuts to health prior to the Griffith by-election and no cuts to health prior to the Senate election in WA. So he held that line—three times he lied! Fool me once, three times he lied. And then as soon as those elections were out of the way out came the GP tax. Out it came, hitting people in the primary healthcare area, which is one of the most important ways that we actually keep our overall health expenditure down.

This man, this government and all of the backbenchers, by default, will say anything to keep power. It is outrageous.

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