Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are back. I am waiting for someone to shout out, 'groundhog day', except, instead of Bill Murray we have the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, a less than pale imitation, but maybe with a similar hairline.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member for Brand to use the correct title.

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer, as I said. Just like the movie, where every single day was the same as the one previously, albeit with slight changes in detail, the same can be said of this budget. It is slightly different in certain details, but it has the same unfair and cruel cuts as the 2014 budget. This is all under the guise of making the right choices for Australia. But, unlike Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, the Treasurer has not even learnt to play the piano. We are back to 2014 and the unmade sequel, 'Back to the Future IV'. The Treasurer has done a Marty McFly with the Doc, Prime Minister Turnbull, and travelled back in time to try and erase the mistakes of the past. It is a poor sequel, if you ask me. At the moment we have former Prime Minister Abbott 'lite' advocating for light 'Gonski lite', 'Medicare lite' and 'NBN lite'. It is a lightweight government. It is lite on banking reform, lite on housing affordability, lite on education, lite on health and, of course, lite on political approval. Speaking of 'Gonski lite', this government's version of needs based funding will see schools get $22 billion less than they would have under a Labor government. It is a $22 billion cut to schools that will mean that on average each school across this country will lose $2.4 million. Yesterday we saw this government had a crack at disowning its 2014 budget. But, like a bad remake of a 1980s George A Romero movie, these zombie measures will come back again under this government.