Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is right. Mr Tanner was quoted as saying:

The Government may class us as rich in their Budget but I can tell you we do it tough every single day ...

But does this government care? No. The Treasurer’s response to people like the Tanners was:

The Government does not believe hard earned tax dollars are best spent on cash payments to the wealthiest Australians.

While the Tanners are working very hard to earn those tax dollars, they are certainly not living as the wealthiest Australians. Treasurer Swan’s arrogant response demonstrated only how out of touch this government has already become with struggling Australian working families. Wayne Tanner makes another very valuable point. When quoted in the Advertiser, he commented that the budget takes away an important Australian ethic—the incentive to work. I repeat that: Mr Tanner says a key Australian ethic, the incentive to work, has been taken away by this budget. His statement is very true.

The Tanner family is typical of the kind of Australians who give their all to raise a family and make a positive contribution to the Australian economy and society. They run a small business. Between them they work 80 hours a week, and they struggle to give their two children the best possible start in life. The government, however, has branded them as some of the new rich, has stripped away any kind of assistance or recognition for their hard work and, by pitting them against Australians earning less than $150,000, has implied they are on easy street. Well, the Tanners deserve better, and so do working families right across Australia.

This is a high-taxing, high-spending, old-fashioned Labor budget from an old-fashioned Labor government. There is absolutely nothing in this budget to fight inflation. While it is what we should have expected from a Labor government—because after all a leopard cannot change its spots—it is not what the Australian people believe they were voting for at the last election. The Australian people deserve much, much better.

In recent times we have been hearing commentators ask if the Australian economy can weather the international financial crisis, and we have questioned how families can survive times of high inflation and increases in interest rates. After this budget, the more pressing problem appears to be whether the Australian economy and Australian families can weather the storm of this incompetent government, incompetent Prime Minister and incompetent Treasurer.