Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the next few weeks Western Australians will have a unique opportunity to make a statement about what they want for government, about how they want government to work to secure their future, their opportunity to secure a decent quality of life and to develop a strong and resilient community where everyone has a chance of a place in the sun. Unfortunately, the Abbott government has modelled itself on the extremism of the Tea Party. Its aim is to make government small, to undermine those strategic interventions that create that thing that makes us Australian—that universality of opportunity. The Abbott government is walking away from the hard issues—from delivering an education system that ensures that our kids will be able to participate successfully in an increasingly competitive global economy. Before the last election they committed to the Gonski education reforms. But instead of delivering that carefully targeted new funding they have allowed Premier Barnett to rip $113 million from the education budget, more than the total that the federal government will contribute under the Gonski project—a complete contravention of the principles of Gonski—so that WA schools across the state are losing teachers, education assistants and resources as schools in other states are receiving a massive cash injection.

The Abbott government is walking away from the hard issues around Perth's rapid growth. They say they do not do public transport and are pulling $500 million from the federal budget that has been committed for the expansion of our rail network. At the same time, congestion is creating major problems for productivity and for family life.

The Abbott government is threatening Medicare, which over the last 30 years has ensured that every Western Australian had free access to a first class public health system. They are in the process of dismantling carbon pricing and look set to undermine the Renewable Energy Target, which has seen 500,000 Western Australian households and businesses embrace solar power and solar hot water systems.

Not only are they playing Pontius Pilate in this, as we head towards the dangers of climate change, but they will be denying tens of thousands of Western Australians the opportunity to reduce their power bills and to have an electricity network that will be robust in the face of increasing fossil fuel prices.

They are repealing the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act that have worked for decades to help deliver harmony in this great melting pot of Australia. They have ditched any attempt to protect Australian jobs. Every advanced economy around the world has a government that takes an active involvement in ensuring the development of strategic industries. It does not happen by 'getting out of the way'. The internet, touch screens, wi-fi, all of these and many more are developments that came from government investment.

The coalition cannot even find room for a minister for science, let alone investment in scientific and technological research and skills formation. They are unpicking the constraints around the 457 visas, as unemployment in WA is now at a 10-year high, with 84,000 Western Australians out of work. Tell the Abbott government that you want a government that is out there actively fighting for you, your family, and for Western Australia. Vote for Labor in the coming election.