Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is two days after the budget, and the details are becoming clearer. First of all, we need to note that this government's budget includes income tax cuts that will see income tax cuts for one in five in my community—one in five—but the kicker comes with the cuts to income that will go with them, the cuts to the family tax benefit and the cuts to the schoolkids bonus, which will see those families worse off under this government. Even those families who are earning over $80,000 a year who may receive some form of income tax cut will be hit again by the family tax benefit cuts and the schoolkids bonus cuts. The whole country will be hit by a billion-dollar cut in infrastructure.

This economic plan—as those opposite are claiming it is—is actually going to entrench unfairness for 10 years. That is an uncosted 10 years, we might add. We are calling it a budget; those opposite are insisting on calling it an economic plan. It is an economic plan that entrenches unfairness. It brings with it cuts to health. There have been estimates this morning of $14 per doctor visit. I know how Australia reacted to a GP tax of $7 per doctor visit. I wonder how they will be reacting in their homes this morning when they read that it could be $14 up front to see a doctor, and that is without talking about the pathology cuts and the increases that families will see.

We know it includes enormous cuts to education. We know it includes an attack on Medicare. We know that this government is obsessed with the Americanisation of our health system, and we find this morning that they are going to continue to pursue the Americanisation of our higher education system. These are things that the Australian public has already rejected, but they insist.

I was not surprised this morning to hear that former Prime Minister John Howard had suggested that the member for Warringah would go out and sell this budget around the country. Good luck with that. He tried to sell the 2014 budget. He tried to sell the 2015 budget. Those opposite removed him from office. But now he will be out around the traps selling this 2016 budget that backs in all of the cuts.

There are some this morning who are claiming that Labor is talking about envy. This is not envy, and the people in my community know it. They know that I stand here an advocate for fairness, an advocate for opportunity, an advocate for a fair Australian system that sees every child, in every school, given the opportunities that they deserve—something those opposite seem to fail to understand. Labor will put people first.