Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers provided by the minister to the opposition's questions during question time. I was going to start by stating the fact that there is no-one on the government side that is talking about debt, but we have just heard one senator. There is finally one senator in this place, Senator Reynolds, who is game enough to talk about debt. I give you full points, Senator Reynolds, for raising that big, ugly word, 'debt'. You are the only one in your government doing so. You know why no-one is raising it: because under this government, debt has blown out to half a trillion dollars. From what they started with in 2013 to where they are now is an incredibly dark, dark hole.

On that dark, dark hole, the government has tried to be really tricky. It has tried to be really tricky and really clever with this budget. It has been crawling around in the dark for some time. Finally, it has decided to turn on the light and adopt Labor's approach for fairness. But, in doing so, they have tried their best to copy us, and they have failed. They have failed dismally. It fails the fairness test miserably. It fails on health. It fails to implement the Medicare freeze—in fact, Medicare cuts will stay in place for three years. On top of that, veterans' health has been cut as well. It fails in education. University students will pay more for their degrees, and pay earlier. University funding is down 2.5 per cent. It rips $22 billion out of schools compared to Labor's original Gonski deal. It fails on housing affordability, one of the most crucial issues facing our country. Instead, property investors will still get more government assistance than first-home buyers. It fails our economy, because growth is down, employment is down, wages are down and jobs are forecast to be down by 95,000.

The only thing that is up is that nasty word that Senator Reynolds was willing to talk about: debt. The debt is up. The deficit is up. In fact, the deficit is 10 times bigger than the Liberals' first budget predicted. It is so bad, this budget—despite them trying to gild it as something that is fair—that during the question time that we just had the government's own senators could only get the gumption to ask two questions on the budget. Two questions! This is the day after. Here we are, the day after, with the big fanfare of fairness, and they have hit the wall already. They could only ask two questions on the budget. That is how good this budget is. That is how fair this budget is. That is how much they want to go out there and sell this budget. The reason they do not want to go out there and sell it is because they do not believe in fairness. They do not believe in fairness and they never have. I do not think there has ever been a time that I have agreed with Andrew Bolt, but today there is going to be a breakthrough! I have to agree with these words in Andrew Bolt's column today:

Turnbull is plagued by seeming a stand-for-nothing guy who blathers.

Andrew Bolt has summed up Turnbull in that sentence, because he does stand for nothing. We do have, unfortunately, a Prime Minister who stands for nothing.

The Liberal Party stands for nothing so much that it has tried to backflip on some of its fundamental ideological policies by introducing new taxes. At the same time, it has held onto some of them by, of course, ensuring it gets rid of taxes for the rich. We still end up with that old Liberal mentality of letting the rich pay little tax and attacking those on a low income. How on earth can you call a budget fair when you are attacking some of the lowest-income Australians and letting the rich get off scot-free?