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

Last night the Turnbull government delivered a budget that has failed every fairness test set for it. It has failed the fairness test in education. Put simply, there's a $17 billion cut to our schools in this budget and a $17 billion gift in tax cuts to the big banks. There's a $270 million cut to TAFE, where the next generation of our skilled tradespeople would learn their trade.

It fails the test for pensioners. The pension age of 70 remains in this budget. They have not changed their minds about that. And they are still going to cut the energy supplement, which will be a $14-a-fortnight cut to pensioners.

It fails on infrastructure. It fails dramatically on infrastructure for Victoria. Despite the $5 billion promised for the airport-to-city rail link, there is only $250 million to be spent in the next four years.

It fails on housing affordability. There is nothing in this budget that will help young people in my community get into their first home, even if you take into account their $10 tax cut. Let's look at that. Medium house prices are $450,000 in my community. A 10 per cent deposit is $45,000. Ten dollars a week for a couple is $1,000 a year, so they're going to be saving for 45 years. So this budget fails the housing affordability test.

It also fails the home-care and aged-care fairness test. There was a lot made of the 14,000 places for home care announced last night—3½ thousand places a year. Put that against the fact that in the last six months alone the waiting list for home care packages has gone up by 20,000 people. This is another fail. The government have failed to address the aged-care crisis. They have failed to react promptly to home care, and we all know what the preventative savings are there. They have also failed on health. There's a $1 billion cut implied in this budget and there are cuts to our hospitals, which will make waiting lists longer.

This government has not taken any of the opportunities it was given for this budget. They've done nothing about housing affordability. They haven't taken up Labor's ideas there. They haven't taken up Labor's ideas in the health area. They haven't taken up Labor's ideas in education. This budget is all focused on the big end of town—$80 billion worth of tax cuts for big business and the big banks while everyday Australians will suffer.