Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the last six months the Turnbull government has flagged tax changes to the GST, negative gearing and superannuation. But as the Liberal backbench and the member for Warringah pressure him to take each item off the table, Prime Minister Turnbull is leading Australia back to the future, back to the 2014 budget, back to massive cuts to pensioners, back to increasing the pension age to 70, back to $5,000-a-year cuts to families, back to $100,000 degrees and back to $80 billion of cuts to schools and hospitals. This is not the economic leadership that this Prime Minister promised. Instead, we are left with national security leaks and internal divisions within the Liberal Party. We are left with a government that is completely bereft of any tax policy. What a disappointment this Prime Minister is.

It is the families and pensioners right around Australia who are going to pay the price for this Prime Minister's lack of leadership. They are the people who are going to bear the burden of this government's savage cuts—the same old cuts, the same old chaos, the same old division and the same old Liberals.