Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In footballing terms, if the 2014 federal budget was the Freemantle budget, a case of the minor premiers crash landing in spectacular fashion in the year after, last night was the Richmond of budgets. It was a budget of high expectations met with mediocrity and disappointment. Malcolm Turnbull, the Prime Minister, had a choice in last night's budget. He could have chosen to invest in our schools, in our hospitals and in our communities. Instead, he chose tax cuts for the highest 25 per cent of Australian income earners. Individuals who earn the most will get a double tax cut. Someone earning $1 million a year will get a $16,715 tax cut, while three-quarters of Australian taxpayers receive absolutely nothing. Indeed, many will go backwards. A couple with a single income of $65,000 with three primary school kids are $3,034 worse off a year and will receive no tax cuts. A single mother on an income of $87,000 a year with two high schoolers is $4,463 worse off per year.

The Prime Minister also chose tax cuts for multinational corporations. He says it is a plan for, 'Jobs and growth'. That is the new slogan from the Prime Minister, who promised no slogans. How can you have a plan for jobs and growth that does not invest in our schools, that abandons the Gonski plan for school education funding, that cuts $2 billion in funding from our universities, that cuts $1 billion in funding for infrastructure investment accelerating the already dangerous 20 per cent decline in public sector infrastructure investment that has occurred under this government?

This budget is not about jobs and growth; it is about ideology and vested interests. It is a budget that clearly frames the question facing the voters at the coming election: do you trust Malcolm Turnbull to govern in your interests?

On Thursday night Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, will outline Labor's positive alternative. We will provide the economic leadership that was lacking last night. It will be a Western Bulldogs budget reply—a plan that invests in young people to build a prosperous future, and a plan that lets everyone contribute and reach their full potential, not just a few high-earning stars. It will be a plan that provides for better paid and protected jobs; for better schools and better teachers; for a healthier Australia investing in Medicare instead of cutting it; and for a 50 per cent renewable energy target, including driving more solar energy investment. It will be a plan that puts people first. You can trust a Labor government, led by Bill Shorten, to govern in your interests. Whose interests will Malcolm Turnbull govern in?