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

My question is to the Prime Minister. For over a year the Prime Minister has pretended that he has not cut $80 billion from Australian schools and hospitals despite it being written in his budget papers. This week the New South Wales Liberal Treasurer described these cuts as 'a cut to growth funding which is substantially a cut to the budget—no doubt about that'. When will the Prime Minister finally admit that he has cut $80 billion from our schools and hospitals?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question has been asked. The Prime Minister will have the call and he will be heard in silence with no more caterwauling.

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

The money that the Leader of the Opposition claims was somehow cut from school and hospital budgets was never included in any forward estimates under the former Labor government. This was not money that the former Labor government ever put into any budget. The former Labor government never put this money into any budget. This government said, when in opposition, that we would entirely keep the commitments that the former government had made over the forward estimates but that we were not going to be bound by any statements that the former government had made beyond the forward estimates, because, as we made clear again and again before the election—as indeed we were attacked by members opposite again and again. Before the election we made it clear that beyond the forward estimates this was just pie in the sky. It did not exist. It was a myth. It was a fantasy. Because the members opposite did not have the money, they could not afford to spend it. It simply did not exist. It was a fantasy of the first order. We were absolutely up front before the last election. We said we would honour Labor's commitments in the forward estimates but would never be bound by pie-in-the-sky promises beyond the forward estimates.

We have absolutely honoured that undertaking. Every year school and hospital funding goes up under this government. It will go up by 28 per cent over the forward estimates for schools; it will go up by 25 per cent over the forward estimates for hospitals. Every year it goes up and up. The only thing that goes down and down is the credibility of the opposition—the credibility of an opposition leader who has been caught out again and again and who is now absolutely floundering. I have one piece of advice for the Leader of the Opposition as he ponders his own performance over the recess: to try to be as responsible on economic security as he mostly is on national security. That is my advice. That would be honouring the best traditions of his party. That would be doing the best thing by his own party right now. Is he up to it? We will find out. I hope for our country's sake and his party's sake he is.

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.