Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Bravo, Senator Lines, for making it through another repetitive effort from the great strategists opposite. They sit down every morning and say: 'What's the biggest thing on our agenda? What are we really passionate about raising on behalf of the Australian people?' We once again have this very predictable and extremely repetitive effort. Bravo, Senator Lines, for having another swing. To everybody from Labor who is going into bat today, well done! I hope we have not had to recycle too much! Unfortunately, from listening to that, they have no idea.

Minister Johnson today in question time had it right. It is a very predictable MPI because there is no idea on the other side. We have blank space, blank heads, a blank page. It is a classic Labor tactic. It is not about broken promises; it is like a broken record. And the thing with a broken record is that people stop listening to it; they just turn it off; it becomes white noise in the back of everybody's day; nobody is listening. With your own reputation in tatters after six years of broken promises and incompetence, you are trying to tar us with your own brush. Labor is saying: 'We know we were dishonest, we know we were useless, but Tony Abbott and his mob are just as bad.' But the problem is that that claim is absolutely false. It is a classic tactic of Labor to go out with a media release, press conferences, statements in the chamber and questions through an inquiry that actually do not match the facts. In fact the shadow minister for employment released press releases during estimates which completely falsely represented what was happening in the estimates hearing at that particular time. It is a tired old tactic. The Australian people can obviously see through it. Despite your denials about the election results, there is no denying that they were emphatic about getting rid of the rhetoric and false claims of Labor.

Let's talk about broken promises. Labor promised to consult on climate change and instead delivered a carbon tax. Labor imposed the world's biggest carbon tax—a $9 billion a year hit to our economy costing average households over $550 per year. Despite the emphatic result of the election over a year ago, Labor still supports a carbon tax. Labor senators voted to the keep the carbon tax in place last July, although they do not talk about that back in their electorates. They are in denial about the election result—a broken record long after the audience has left the dance floor.

Labor promised a budget surplus—in fact, they did not just promise it once; they promised it 500 times—but Labor have not delivered a budget surplus in over a quarter of a century. In fact, Wyatt Roy, the member for Longman, was not even born when Labor last delivered a budget surplus. Labor promised less debt; Labor government debt blew out to over $320 billion and was projected to reach $667 billion in 10 years. Labor promised more jobs; under Labor, the number of unemployed increased by over 200,000, productivity declined by 0.7 per cent a year, working days lost to strikes doubled and business red tape increased, making it a bit hard to deliver on that promise by Labor of more jobs. Another promise by Labor was to cut company tax; after the election, Labor scrapped the tax cut. Labor promised to give $2.1 billion for a transport link in Western Sydney; it never happened.

Labor promised to build an NBN. It would have cost at least $29 billion more than we were told, and hardly anyone signed up. The government is getting the NBN back on track with more than twice as many homes and businesses now receiving NBN services than a year ago. Under a coalition government, NBN Co met its rollout target for the very first time. That is good management. Labor promised to build 2,650 trades training centres in schools; 2.409 of them have not been built. Labor promised safe and secure borders; over 50,000 illegal arrivals came in more than 800 boats, causing a cost blow-out of over $11 billion. Labor promised to support the Australian Defence Force, and the Defence Force budget fell to the lowest level as a percentage of GDP since 1938.

This MPI goes to education, health, pensions, the GST, and the ABC and SBS. So let us look at the reality versus the string of Labor lies. In relation to education and schools under this government, Commonwealth spending for schools will reach record highs and increase over four years. That is the reality. It is black and white in the budget papers. In the recent budget, the Australian government kept its commitments and is investing record recurrent funding of $64.5 million in government and non-government schools over the next four years. That is an increase of $4.6 billion, or 37 per cent, during this period. They are the facts. There will be no cuts to education funding for schools. I quote ABC Fact Check:

The Government did not cut $30 billion from schools in the May budget … Ms Ellis is spouting rubbery figures.

It is black and white, and it is simple: we did not cut funding to education. No matter how many times you say that we did, no matter how many MPIs you bring before the Senate, and no matter how many times you trot shadow ministers and backbench senators out for press releases and media releases, it does not make it true.

That is only one component of the Education portfolio; let us turn to universities. Labor's campaign on university reform is perhaps the most dishonest yet and I am sure that we are going to have a right royal stoush over the coming weeks about the reality versus Labor lies on that particular campaign. Let us look at Labor's record and at Senator Carr's record. Senator Carr's record on universities is that he proposed cuts to higher education and research of over $6.6 billion, which the department confirmed at a Senate inquiry last week, including $28 billion on one day in April 2013. Labor's current scare campaign on $100,000 degrees is plain wrong. The University of Western Australia has set fees for 2016 which are less than half of what Labor is claiming. No student will need to pay up-front, nor will they be prevented from attending universities for financial reasons. What we do know about the proposed reforms under the government's higher education legislation is that there will be a range of fees charged. To say there will be $100,000 degrees is simply wrong. We are increasing funding to universities, as was confirmed in the Senate inquiry last week.

The story in the Health portfolio is very similar. Again, Labor is spouting rubbery figures. I know that those opposite do not like to hear this, but the budget papers show that the Abbott government is increasing funding to hospitals by $5.3 billion, or 40 per cent, over the next four years. That is the reality; that is the fact. Labor's trickery is that it promised increases beyond the forward estimates which it knew it could never afford, but Labor did not have to worry about that because the promises do not appear in the budget papers. What is in the budget papers, what is projected over the forward estimates and what the government proposes to spend over a given period of time is what we can argue about, because it is the reality; it is not dream time. This is known as Labor's budget time bomb.

The MPI goes to cuts to pensions. For the record, there are no cuts to pensions under this government. Pensions will continue to increase twice a year and the family home will continue to be exempt from the pension's asset test. Older Australians now have lower bills following the abolition of the carbon tax but still get to keep their energy supplement. The income thresholds for the Commonwealth seniors health card were indexed from 20 September 2014, enabling up to 27,000 additional people to qualify for the card. I could go on in relation to this government's arguments around no cuts to pensions, no cuts to health and no cuts to education.

If Labor's claims are about $100,000 degrees are the most dishonest, then Labor's claims about the government's alleged secret plans to raise the GST are the silliest. We said that we would not be making any changes to the GST, and we are not. Again, just because you say that it is so does not make it so. The Australian people are interested in fact, not fiction, as demonstrated by their absolute support of the coalition's agenda at the last election.

We have key achievements. When we look at the promises that we took to the federal election, by any measure, the Abbott government is delivering on its promises. (Time expired)