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

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is it fair that a millionaire will receive a $16,400 tax cut while every other Australian has to pay more tax?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How is it fair to sell out low-paid workers at Clean Event and trade away their penalty rates? How is it fair to promise parents of disabled children that there is a National Disability Insurance Scheme and never fund it? How is it fair to go to an election with a financial plan that involved flinging $16½ billion of additional deficits and debt on the shoulders of Australians? The Labor Party has no concept of fairness. This is the party that claimed to be in favour of needs based funding. So eloquent was the Leader of the Opposition! He said only today, 'For me it's not about, in education, the government system or the non-government system; I believe in a sector-neutral approach which prioritises needs based funding,' and yet he delivered exactly the reverse.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney will cease interjecting. The Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order?

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

On relevance: my question was specifically about the tax cuts that the government are giving to millionaires and the tax rises they are giving everyone else.

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the Prime Minister, I will address the point of order. Members on both sides will cease interjecting, or I will have to deal with them. I recognise that it is the day after the budget and I might have a busy day. The Leader of the Opposition is correct to say it was a very short question, but the Prime Minister is in order when he is referring to the concept of fairness.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the ruling that you—

Ms Henderson interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Corangamite is warned!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the rulings that you have been making to date with respect to questions go to the topic area or policy area that we ask. If we are in a situation now where the adjective or the noun that we use to describe a policy opens up the entirety of government policy, where an impossible—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business can resume his seat.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

The Leader of the House will cease interjecting.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

The Minister for Health is warned. I cannot stop members on both sides interjecting on each other, but, I tell you what, you are not going to interject on me. I have heard enough of the Manager of Opposition Business's point of order. That is not my intention. I have also referred to preambles as well, and the Prime Minister is part way through the answer. But I did not mean to leave the impression with him that I have come in here and announced a new ruling. I am listening to the Prime Minister. So far, I judge him, in comparing and contrasting, to be in order.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is nothing fairer than telling Australians the truth about the public finances of their country and ensuring, as we have in the budget, that there are the funds to deliver the National Disability Insurance Scheme and to be able to say to the parents of disabled children, 'The money is there,' and not as you did—you ranks of serried hypocrites, all of you—you never put the money in place. Dripping with empathy—hypocrites to the last degree.

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Members on both sides will cease interjecting.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

The member for Lingiari is warned. The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Simply for the Prime Minister to direct his remarks through the chair.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very fair point of order.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the opposition have perpetuated this myth that they are the party of empathy. They claim to be fair. They want to be fair to Australian students. Well, why don't they tell parents the truth? Why don't they tell them that they never implemented Gonski? They never delivered a needs-based system. They said they did but they didn't, and they know they didn't. They talked about the National Disability Insurance Scheme and never funded it; we have. We have delivered. We told the truth. We have brought the budget back into balance. The forecasts are stronger than ever. We have raised the money and made the tough decisions. This budget is fair. Labor has failed on fairness, just like the Leader of the Opposition failed the members of the Australian Workers' Union on fairness. This is a fair budget—one that delivers the opportunity and the security. And the only thing that matches the anxiety of the Leader of the Opposition is the energy of the member for Grayndler in the press gallery today.

Government members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my right are preventing me giving the call for the next question. I call the member for Gilmore.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the government's fair and responsible budget and plan for a stronger economy, including in my electorate of Gilmore, because we know it is funded—not unfunded.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. The member for Gilmore was a school teacher. She has not only been a school teacher; she has trained schoolteachers. She knows that this budget delivers the needs-based funding that Australian schools and Australian students need, the needs-based funding that the Labor Party never delivered and the needs-based funding that David Gonski recommended. They took David Gonski's name in vain and plastered it up all over the country—an exercise in massive hypocrisy, because they never delivered what he recommended. As Ken Boston said, Labor's education policy was a 'corruption' of Gonski's recommendations. No less than that.

This budget demonstrates our commitment to securing Australia's future opportunity and doing so fairly. We are dealing with the big issues that we confront fairly. So, we are fully funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We are bringing the budget back into balance so that our children and grandchildren are not burdened with a mountain of debt. We are ensuring that we are making the big nation-building investments in infrastructure: the inland rail—$10 billion into rail—and the Western Sydney Airport, and another $1 billion into rail in Victoria. These are nation-building investments—Snowy Hydro 2.0. These secure the future for our nation. They secure the economic prospects of our children.

We are guaranteeing Medicare—securing Medicare. Every year the Medicare levy and the amount from income tax that is required to pay for Medicare and the PBS will go into the Medicare Guarantee Fund—every year. That will be the law. Medicare will be guaranteed by my government, guaranteed by the coalition—and the PBS. That is our commitment: to give Australians the security they need.

We believe—we know—that in order to secure investment you need lower business taxes. And what we have done is reduce tax on small and medium businesses, and we will go further to make Australian business competitive. But we do not believe, as Labor apparently does, that paying tax is optional. Who will forget, at the end of 2015, when the Labor Party voted against the multinational tax avoidance measures? They voted against them. If it had not been for the Greens, the measures would not have got through the Senate. We stand for fairness, opportunity and security, and this budget delivers all three.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Ms Burney interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Barton is warned. And members on both sides need to be mindful that I consider the level of interjections to be far too high and constant, and if I need to pause question time to deal with some members I will do so. I am giving fair warning right now.