Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an unfair budget! Once again the Turnbull government have confirmed they stand on the side of big business and the big end of town over ordinary Australians. Of course, they have their own self-interest at heart, and the real evidence of that is in the way they pitched their tax cuts. Seventy-five per cent of Australians will miss out on tax relief—that is pretty much every working Australian. They have been completely ignored by the Turnbull government, while a person earning $1 million a year will get a tax cut of $16,750. And where do those getting that massive tax cut live? They live in the electorates of the Turnbull government ministers and members, and that is called 'pork-barrelling'. In fact, there are just nine electorates across the country that will benefit the most from this pork-barrelling, and eight of those are held by members of the Turnbull government—starting with the Prime Minister with the wealthiest electorate, followed by his deputy Liberal, Julie Bishop. Giving a tax cut of this size to those who need it the least while tripling the budget deficit is clearly irresponsible.

For most electorates—141 of the 150—there is nothing in terms of a tax cut. Certainly the voters in my electorate, the federal electorate of Swan, fall far below the Prime Minister's tax threshold of $80,000 per year. There is no tax cut for them. It is clear that the Turnbull government do not understand that, in the electorate of Swan, the yearly wage of some working people in our community, such as casual hospitality workers, students supporting themselves through uni, casual or part-time cleaners or part-time retail workers, is the same as the unnecessary and unwarranted $16,750 a year tax cut to millionaires—the same. The Treasurer could not have got it more wrong when he declared his budget was not about winners and losers. A millionaire getting the equivalent of someone's yearly wage in a tax cut is clearly about winners and losers. The Turnbull government has demonstrated once again how out of touch it is with ordinary Australian voters.

For the voters in the electorate of Swan these pork-barrelling tax cuts certainly define the Turnbull's 'haves' and the rest, being most Australians. This Turnbull budget is neither one thing nor another and, in the terms of our shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, 'It's the worst of all worlds.' The cuts to schools and hospitals continue and, of course, ordinary Australians—those ignored by the Turnbull government—are our families who want a good education for their children, who have already seen the cuts this government has made to their kids' schools and are now seeing more of that. Australian families want a properly funded school system that is funded on need, not according to postcodes. They have not seen fair and equitable funding under the Abbott-Turnbull government; nor will they.

The cuts to our hospitals continue. There are the attacks on Medicare and the cuts to pathology and radiography services, which will see ordinary Australians—those earning under $75,000 a year, who are ignored by the Turnbull government—paying hundreds of dollars up-front when they require pathology and radiography services. And of course, as we know, most of those people are women. I know that in the federal seat of Swan voters are telling Labor's candidate, Tammy Solonec, that they are very concerned about the cuts to health and the cuts to Medicare. It is the No. 1 issue Tammy hears about when she speaks to voters.

The voters of Swan will contrast these cuts to Australian families and to Australian workers who pay their tax and who expect governments to provide decent health and education services with the government's uncosted 10-year corporate tax proposal. Labor supports tax cuts for small business. Remember, it was our policy in the first place. Interestingly, the benefits and incentives we provided to small business were among the first cuts the Abbott government made once they were elected. They did not care about small businesses but, of course, because there is an election on the horizon they have suddenly rediscovered small businesses. I am sure that we will hear today the terms 'small business' and 'mums and dads' in the one sentence. But they are not fooled.

What Labor does not support, of course, is redefining what a small business is. Once again we see the Turnbull government seeking to pork-barrel its mates at the big end of town. The government want to redefine a small business as—wait for it—anything with a turnover of less than $1 billion. So Labor will not be supporting an increase in the 'small business' definition moving to $1 billion. It is just more Morrison madness.

Voters in the federal seat of Swan have told our candidate, Tammy Solonec, that they do not want cuts to paid parental leave. We saw that that came in in the 2015 budget, and it will see up to 80,000 women a year lost almost $12,000, again a figure closely resembling the tax cut given to millionaires. Families in Swan were promised relief from childcare fees, but of course these have been abandoned until 2018, and who knows what will happen then? Hopefully, this government will have been voted out of office.

The cuts to the Child Dental Benefits Schedule will hit families in Swan. I know that our candidate for Swan, Tammy Solonec, is very concerned about this cut. Then there is the double-whammy for voters in Swan: women hit by family payment cuts will see none of the benefits of those tax cuts. Of course, the Turnbull government has completely ignored that half of the voters in Australia are women, and that is true in the seat of Swan. Once again we will see that those tax cuts will mostly benefit men.

Tammy Solonec, our candidate in Swan, was talking to me this morning and told me that sole parents in the federal seat of Swan, who are mostly women, will be much worse off under the Turnbull government's budget. If the woman is a sole parent in the seat of Swan with an income of around $65,000 a year and two children in high school, she will be more than $5,000 a year worse off. So I just do not know how Mr Morrison cam claim that this budget is not about winners and losers. It clearly demonstrates to me and no doubt will demonstrate to the voters in Swan, the people that Tammy Solonec talks to, how out of touch the government is. You cannot continue to take from Australian families, to take from Australian workers, to take from Australian pensioners. You just cannot keep doing that and at the same time over and over give to the big end of town, pork-barrelling your mates in just nine very wealthy electorates. That is what we saw from the Turnbull government last night. It is a budget very clearly defined by its unfairness, very clearly defined by the winners, the handful of wealthy in this country—and good on them if they have made wealth, but they need to contribute, not get the yearly equivalent of someone's salary as a tax cut.

It is the Turnbull government's last budget before we go to an election. Australians have been let down and disappointed once again by a government that in the past made promises they broke, so why would Australian voters trust them now? Voters in Swan certainly will not trust a Liberal-National party again. They will be voting for Tammy Solonec.