Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Happy 10th anniversary to the Abbott horror budget of 2014, a sharp contrast to 2024! The suggested presents for 10-year anniversaries are tin or aluminium. Perhaps a tin ear would be the best present for the 2014 budget anniversary—a tin ear in smoking cigars to celebrate austerity when people were doing it tough. Contrast this with 2024, when tax cuts were delivered that benefited all people—including those on low incomes, who were going to miss out on tax cuts entirely under the opposition's plan.

The 2014 budget represented a tin ear in slashing health funding, winding back hospital funding agreements by $50 billion over eight years and asking patients to pay $7 for a bulk-billed appointment. It was not surprising, given the health minister at the time was rated the worst in 35 years by a survey of over a thousand doctors. Contrast this with a budget that invests in cheaper medicines and bulk-billing.

Perhaps aluminium would be the best gift for the 2014 anniversary. Aluminium represents flexibility. Yet what an ironic gift for a budget built on ideological inflexibility, a budget built on cuts and slashed funding even when the incoming government had explicitly promised to protect people's benefits! Aluminium would be a better gift for the 2024 budget. It has been described as the original critical mineral. Aluminium is a symbol of the 2024 budget's investment in the economy's capacity to extract and process critical minerals for the future. The best anniversary gift for the 2014 budget would be an aluminium rubbish bin with a heavy tin lid.