Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

They were going to fix the budget—thanks very much. And we were going to have 'adult government'. That was a promise I remember. And what have we had? We have had a divided government. We know what the Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, did when Mr Abbott was Prime Minister. We know what he did at the cabinet table. Mr Abbott was coming up with one crazy idea after another—$80 billion worth of cuts. What did Malcolm Turnbull do? He just sat back in his chair. When Mr Abbott wanted to introduce the GP tax, what did Malcolm Turnbull do at the cabinet table? He just sat back.

I understand that people were so relieved to get rid of the member for Warringah, who will be seen forever as a kind of accidental Prime Minister—people will always regard him with this kind of odd, 'What was going on there?'—and see Malcolm Turnbull turn up that they were inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. But we now know that he does not deserve it at all, because what is he trying to do? He is trying to alter the GST. And who does that affect? It affects people on fixed incomes—pensioners, who were robbed of their concessions—and low-paid workers who are not in the tax system. They are not in the tax system in effect because Labor tripled the tax-free threshold and took thousands of workers out of the tax system. People who are working hard but earning less than $18,000 a year cannot be compensated for the GST at all, and some of those people are the families in my electorate that I mentioned before who are in receipt of these family tax benefit payments.

You have to remember that these payments—family tax benefit A and family tax benefit B—were introduced by the Howard government. Their predecessor, the Hawke government, brought these things in. There has been a long history of Labor in government making payments to families to make sure that family budgets are secure, and that is good for the country. Interestingly enough, John Howard knew it was good for the country too. He knew it was good for the stability of the family unit.

What do we have here from the government—this divided, treacherous bunch, who cannot keep their word and who have not fulfilled one single commitment that they gave to the people at the last election? They promised a united government but gave us a divided government. They promised an adult government but we have these juvenile games. They promised to balance the budget but they did not balance the budget. They promised not to change the GST, but will probably—maybe, I do not know—be changing the GST. They said that workers' wages would be okay, but of course they are after your penalty rates. They said that Medicare was okay but of course they are hacking into doctors' rebates. So we know what those opposite are up to.

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