Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Last week the opposition leader, in his shambles of a show—I say 'shambles' because I can't say the other S-word that goes with 'show' here—reached a new low of disrespect not only to the people that I represent in south-east Melbourne but to every Australian. He announced his official policy where he literally will not tell the Australian people before the election what he's going to cut. His official policy now is—they're his words—he's not going to tell you about the $315 billion of secret cuts. He's asking people to vote for him but he won't tell them what he's going to cut. Literally, these are massive, secret cuts. You know what he's for: secret cuts. As Niki Savva rightly said in her column this morning, he doesn't have a single, costed, credible policy to put forward. There's nothing that he's really for except for secret cuts, but there are some clues on what he wants to cut; you've got to follow the breadcrumb trail. He said that free TAFE is wasteful spending. He's opposed cheaper child care. He doesn't like those cheaper medicines that are helping with the cost of living. He's called for an election on Labor's tax cuts; he's been against the tax cuts, but who knows what he's for.

You can also look at his record. If you're following the trail, he's against Medicare and the universal health system. When he was the health minister in that horror show period under Tony Abbott, $50 billion was cut from public hospitals. That's his record. They're the facts and numbers. He tried to introduce a GP tax to literally destroy bulk billing and charge every Australian to go to the doctor, because, according to the Liberal Party, if you don't pay for it you don't value it. He even floated introducing a charge to go to the emergency department of public hospitals. That's actually his record.

When we say this, when we remind Australians of what he's actually like and what he actually is, the Liberals say, 'You're running a scare campaign'. I tell you what's scary: the idea that the Leader of the Opposition is in charge of anything and is able to implement his $315 billion horror show of cuts to public services. Never before in the history of our Westminster democracy, in 120 years, have we had an opposition leader, the pretend, alternative Prime Minister, who is so arrogant, so divisive and so reckless that he's saying to Australians: 'I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do.' Well, he should get the response that he deserves from people for that kind of arrogance. He's like a cheap complaints line. He wanders around the country like a Harry Potter styled dementor spreading negative energy, fear, hate and division with not a single costed credible policy. But the $315 billion of cuts are just the start, because he needs to cut a lot more than that to fund $600 billion of risky nuclear reactors that'll push up your power bills by $1,200—and goodness knows how much he needs to cut for the $10 billion bosses' long lunches giant tax loopholes. Peter Dutton is worse than Scott Morrison, and that's a big call.

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