Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

This week we are celebrating National Threatened Species Week, and there has been a new entrant on the list of endangered species, and it is this Prime Minister over here, after two years of consistent broken promises and misleading the Australian people. The minister over here said he took offence at using the word 'lies'. Well, I have to say to the minister: what do you say? How do you describe it when somebody goes to the election promising, 'The Nationals will provide increased financial support for doctors who provide health services in regional and remote communities,' and then a year later they cut the support to doctors in rural and remote communities? The minister does not like the word 'lie'. Has he got a preferable word? How do you describe the behaviour of saying one thing before the election and another thing after the election? In hospitals, we have seen $57 billion worth of cuts. We have had the GP tax mark 1, 2, 3 and 4 and cuts to our support for people on medicines. In every area of social service and welfare where you look, there are cuts to things that ordinary Australians are relying on. There is another species on the endangered list. It is the Prime Minister, and in a few weeks time the people of Canning— (Time expired)

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