Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, the Prime Minister dismissed criticism of the government's broken promises and unfair budget as just a matter of atmospherics. When will the Prime Minister accept that it is his unfair GP tax, not the atmospherics, that Australians fundamentally reject?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, the Leader of the Opposition is failing to accurately quote what I said. The Medicare co-payment is exactly the same in principle as the PBS co-payment, which members opposite support. It is exactly the same principle as the PBS co-payment, which members opposite support. It is precisely because members opposite are not prepared to accept the principles of budget responsibility, are not prepared to accept the need for budget repair that this country got itself into the debt and deficit disaster that members opposite created. This is what we are doing; we are repairing the budget. Members opposite are sabotaging the budget. There is $28 billion worth of savings that members opposite are holding up in the Senate, including $5 billion worth of savings that the Leader of the Opposition supported when he was the kingmaker or queenmaker in the previous government. If members opposite were in charge, the budgetary position would be $43 billion worse than it is. There is a very simple lesson here: you just cannot trust the Labor Party with public money and economic management.