Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about this government's unfair budget, which was handed down just 24 hours ago and is already drawing much criticism by the everyday working people that I proudly come here to represent. It is a budget that hands millionaires a tax cut worth $16,400 but hits ordinary working men and women earning just $65,000 a year with a tax increase. It is a budget that the government claims is fair but fundamentally falls short of the things that matter, including by failing the basic fairness test. It is a budget that completely ignores the things that we desperately need in Western Sydney like education funding and investment in our Nepean Hospital. Instead it gives us a $5 billion white elephant of an airport at Badgerys Creek.

As the shadow Treasurer, the member for McMahon, said in this chamber during the MPI this afternoon, a budget tells you a lot about the values and priorities of a government. It was very familiar to me because I said similar things when I made my very first speech in this place. It gives you a pretty clear idea of a government's competence, how they connect and engage with the broader population and what they want a country's future to look like. A budget is about choices, and last night this government led by the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, made it crystal clear that they chose big business over middle- and working-class families, many of whom I have the absolute privilege to represent in this place.

We cannot just look at this budget in isolation. There is a broader context that feeds this government's incompetence when it comes to fairness and their absolute competence in disappointment, and it has been inflicted on our nation for the past four years. This morning we had government members sneak in here quietly and try to get away with reversing some of the most unfair measures ever inflicted on Australian people. They did this without even a word of remorse or contrition, not a breath of apology and certainly no explanation as to why this government spent four long years telling Australian people their unfair policies were the only way.

Every single member opposite has voted for these unfair policies because fundamentally they believe in them. Every single member opposite has spent time in their electorate and here in the parliament defending the policies they now seek to quietly see disappear. Australians will not forget what this government tried to do when they thought they could get away with it. No amount of pretending can undo the narrative of this government spending four years attacking those who could least afford it yet looking after their big business mates through unaffordable corporate tax cuts.

There has been a lot of commentary since last night saying this budget is in some way a white flag, with the government finally agreeing that their terrible policies do not have the support of the Australian people, because the Australian people are not mugs and can work out when someone or a government is a dud. But I do not agree. This budget is no surrender; it is a desperate ploy to postpone their devastating policies for the time being only.

But they cannot even get that right. When you dig into these budget papers, it is pretty clear that they have not really listened at all beyond the focus group. For our community Turnbull and co have committed over $5 billion—

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