Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

But he is still the Treasurer. Yes, Mr Hockey is still the Treasurer. He said to the Australian people that people on low incomes could afford a fuel tax because they do not drive their cars very far. That was from the Australian Treasurer. Before the last election, they—that is, Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey, Mr Turnbull and Ms Bishop—also promised that there would be no new taxes. Again, that is another broken promise because they have introduced the petrol tax. We know that they wanted to introduce a GP tax—now I have lost count of whether we are up to version 3, 4 or 5 of the different versions of trying to tax people going to see their GP—because they are all about fundamentally undermining Medicare in this country.

Then when we to turn to education, they said there would be no cuts to education. In my home state of Tasmania, the northern campuses of the University of Tasmania, both in Burnie and in Launceston, are at the mercy of this government as to whether or not they will have to close. Shame on those on the government benches—the three Amigos from Tasmania—who have failed to stand up for Tasmanians! They have failed to stand up for pensioners in Tasmania. They have failed to stand up to the health cuts. They have failed to stand up when it comes to this government trying to introduce $100,000 degrees.

This is unacceptable to the Australian people, and they have seen through this government. As I said, in February Mr Abbott said that a good government had arrived. He has failed to deliver on that promise. At the last election, as we know, Mr Abbott said that there would be no changes to the pensions. There was no caveat. There were no qualifications. But yesterday in this place the minister, in response to a question that I asked, said: 'We did not bring in any change that was going to have effect in this term.' You can play with words, but the reality is that you have lost the trust of the Australian people. There is probably not a lot more that will come out of tonight's budget, because the government have leaked everything to the newspapers to get their stories out to try to prepare the Australian people for the unfair second budget that they will bring down. But there is one thing: you cannot fool the Australian people all the time. They are a wake-up to this childish, heartless, harsh government. (Time expired)