Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on the back of that speech that we have just heard from Senator Abetz to say that we as the Labor Party will stand in the way every single day that this government tries to roll over the Australian people and completely reject any of the claims that they made before the election. The fact is this government has a massive trust deficit and it will never overcome the trust it has broken with the Australian people. That is because they absolutely said one thing before the election and have been delivering a completely different thing since they got in the place. Before the election there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to the pension, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS, for good measure. And what do we have? The Prime Minister arrives and he says, in a manner of words, 'I didn't say that.'

And we hear it again. He made a number of comments last year in the lead-up to the budget. He claimed at that point in time that a ratio of 14 per cent debt to GDP was a 'debt and deficit disaster', and on the back of that he went ahead and created the most appalling budget it has been my great displeasure to witness in my entire life in this country. He could not have constructed a more unfair budget, and in doing so he revealed the Liberal Party and everything it stands for both here in the federal parliament and in the state of New South Wales. If they can take a knife to education, they will slash and burn. If they can take a knife to health, they will cut it and they will scalpel away at it until it is a shadow of its former self. They are determined to break access for every Australian to education and health. They want to set up a two-tier, Americanised system where the rich get richer, and can access health and education, and the poor do not even get a look in. That is what they are in the business of constructing right now.

What did they do the minute they got in here? They said, 'Debt and deficit. Debt and deficit. Debt and deficit.' They drew everyone's attention to a fake emergency. Then they went ahead and, in their very first budget, they cut $50 billion out of health—but that was not quite enough. They had a crack at education, which was their next target, of $30 billion. Mike Baird followed that lead with a $1.7 million cut from education, axing the jobs of 1,100 teachers and staff and cutting courses such as the second-chance HSC syllabus, tourism, hospitality and IT. Access was wiped for young people on the Central Coast, where youth unemployment is hitting nearly 22 per cent. But Mike Baird says, 'Let's cut TAFEs and get rid of it.' He has the hide to call it the Smart and Skilled program. It is dumb and it is removing any opportunity for skilling for young people. There is a pattern here: say one thing before the election, get in and then cut like crazy in health and education. This is what is going on with this government.

What can we hope for from them? In the lead-up to this next budget, he we are hearing them one day saying, 'It is a debt and deficit disaster,' and they are getting ready to kill us again in the budget. The next day they say, 'It is really not that bad.' The Prime Minister actually did say those very words. He said:

… a ratio of debt to GDP at about 50 or 60% is a pretty good result …

It is for this year, because he has decided that it is. Last year, 13 per cent was a disaster. We have him saying, 'I never said that. I never said that.' People know what they heard this Prime Minister say. They know that he promised not to cut health and education and they can see exactly what he did. There are massive cuts to health and education. We should be very, very worried that if a Baird government gets into New South Wales in the next 48 hours, we will see the end of a powerful state giving this government the sort of scrutiny that it deserves.

At the moment, there is no consultation with experts across the fields. The government are just making of their policies they go, flip-flopping from one day to another, to the point where an eye roll from the Foreign Minister has now secured foreign investment. I can only hope that Christopher Pyne and Ms Ley—