Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the budget—a budget that promised so much but delivered so little for working Australians. The budget cut $1.2 billion from infrastructure, delivered zero for the Glendale transport interchange—the most important infrastructure project in the entire Hunter region—confirmed $29 billion of cuts to schools funding, cut Medicare by $1 billion, cut aged care by $1 billion and delivered zip for every worker who earns less than $80,000 in this country. In the Lake Macquarie region, the median wage is $45,000, so the budget delivered zip for working families in my area. As for the tax cuts for so-called small businesses, only a Goldman Sachs merchant banker would think that a business with a turnover of $1 billion is a small business. This is a budget that does not deliver for working families and does not deliver for pensioners—in fact, it cuts pensions for new pensioners. Let me repeat that: this budget cuts the pension for new pensioners. This is a budget that hurts working people, is as unfair as the 2014 budget and will be the tombstone around the neck of this short-lived Prime Minister.