Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday the Prime Minster said that this was the budget the Australian people had elected him to bring down. I am not exactly sure where the Australians who apparently voted for this budget are, but I can assure the Prime Minister that they are certainly not living here in Canberra. On Saturday, I held a mobile office at Erindale in the south of my electorate and it was perfectly clear that, more than five weeks on from the Abbott government's budget, Canberrans are furious. In fact they are getting angrier by the day.

I spoke to Canberrans young and old and they were all united in their anger at this budget. Canberrans have no doubt that the cuts to school funding, the cuts to hospitals, the cuts to higher education, the cuts to pensions and the introduction of a GP co-payment are all broken promises. They have no doubt that this is a budget that unfairly targets young people, low- and middle-income earners, pensioners, single income families, public servants and the sick.

But do not take it from me. Here is what Canberrans have had to say: 'There is no fairness', 'This Budget is devastating', 'Times are tough', 'People's lives are on the line', 'Really, I am so terribly worried about our future', 'Please fight and fight hard for us against this budget and this destructive Government', 'What a nightmare the budget is!', 'As a sixth generation Australian I am appalled at what the government has done', 'How can it benefit our future to create an underclass of the chronically ill, under educated and disaffected?' and 'This budget will kill Canberra.' I can assure the Prime Minister that nobody here voted for this absolute stinker of a budget. (Time expired)