Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Richmond, locals know that Tuesday night's budget was a desperate act by a desperate government. Here we are just six weeks before an election, and the Liberals and Nationals will say and do anything to try to cover up for years of harmful cuts. But locals know that this budget con can't cover up those six years of their inaction on the New South Wales North Coast. After six long years of the Liberals' and Nationals' cuts, chaos and dysfunction my community has had enough.

This is a budget from a government that has just given up governing. That is what's happened. The budget has no plans for wages, no plans to tackle power prices, no plans to address climate change and no plans for the future. Also, the budget has failed to reverse those harmful cuts to schools and hospitals and failed to reverse those cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships. Of course, they were promising a surplus, but subsidised by short-changing people with a disability through a massive underspend in the NDIS—truly shameful. Budgets are all about priorities. For six years the Liberals and Nationals have prioritised an $80 billion tax handout for the top end of town over Medicare, schools and hospitals.

A Shorten Labor government will have different priorities. Our Fair Go Action Plan will put people first by fixing our schools and hospitals, easing the pressure on family budgets, standing up for workers, investing in cheaper and cleaner energy and, really importantly, building a strong economy that works for all of us. The fact is: only Bill Shorten and Labor will deliver a fair go for all Australian, not just the top end of town.