Ged Kearney (Batman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a resounding flop this government's budget is. It's a budget for a party who refused to address two of the most critical issues facing our future: climate change and the scourge of insecure work. Its fake surplus is underwritten by robbing our most vulnerable people. Where is the vision? Where are the ideas and plans for the future? Compare that with Labor's last budget of 2013, where we left a great legacy that included the NDIS and Gonski funding for our schools—visionary stuff. All my life I've fought for working people, and let me tell you: this budget does nothing for working people. Tax cuts alone are not a wage rise. One-off payments do not make up for years and years of stagnant wages and rising prices. The government has deliberately kept pay low, cutting penalty rates, capping Public Service wages and encouraging employers in a race to the bottom.

Unlike the other side, who trade in the politics of envy and isolation, Labor wants all Australians to feel secure, to have decent jobs and to feel hopeful about our future. And, speaking of the future, this is a budget from a government that has never tried to deliver real climate action. The Prime Minister has cut his government's main policy to deliver his weak pollution-reduction targets. And what about our most vulnerable? The so-called surplus is underwritten by people with a disability who have not received much-needed services from NDIS. People of my electorate of Cooper want so much more from the government. They want vision for the future and a real plan, and that is what Labor will deliver.

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