Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I so want to come into to this chamber and believe what I'm hearing from the other side, because I know that people listening to this and people here in the chamber think they're actually going to get the truth. But we've been hearing this government come in after the budget and do this little dance every single year for the last five years. And every single time, as soon as you start to shine the light on what they tell you they're doing, you actually find out that the truth is very, very different. Once again, we revisit the same old pattern of behaviour from this government, setting out from day one of the budget to deceive the Australian public.

Last night this government had the chance to fix five years of unfairness in what I hope will be the very last budget that we see from this government. Sadly, they didn't take up that opportunity. And there is one group that I want to make some comments about. People have read the headlines in recent days about how this government is going to come in and fix up aged care. Right across this country today, as we have this debate in the parliament, 100,000 great Australians are seeking aged-care packages. They were promised in headlines generated by leaks from this government that this was going to be the budget to fix this big problem. But when we look at the detail, what have we got from this government over here, who are excited and proud about what they're doing? We've got 14,000 aged-care packages and a massive waiting list—and to deliver that miserly 14,000 packages they've cut the funding from residential places.

This is not a government that cares about aged people in Australia. This is not a government that could care a jot about the impact of needing a level 4 aged-care package and being delivered a level 1 package—because that's what this government is willing to give you as an ageing Australian. No, this government comes in here and it's going to try to force through—and it has already pushed it into the House of Representatives this morning—a plan to dud tens of thousands of Australian aged-care residents in this country who need a bit of help. The government is coming in to dud them and is going to give $80 billion worth of tax cuts to the big companies instead, many of whom don't even pay tax. That's what they want to do. That's their choice. Those are their values. That's what they decided to do last night.

Of that $80 billion, let's be clear about where a great big chunk of it's going: $17 billion to the banks of this country, who right now are under the scrutiny—at last—of a royal commission that this government voted against 25 times and held up for two years. The government are cosying up with their mates at the top end of town. Make no mistake: this is not a budget for battlers. This is not a budget that's in the interest of the nation. This is a budget that's in the interest of their big friends at the top end of town. And the great shame of it is that 100,000 ageing Australians and their families, right now, are sitting waiting. And they will continue to wait, because this government simply don't understand their responsibility to look after the vulnerable in our community. That is not their way. They don't stand up for ordinary Australians. They don't care. They care much more about their relationships with the top end of town, and they continue to put out this—I think the term used by Senator Carr this afternoon was—'rhetorical illusion'. This rhetorical illusion tries to hide that, in their budget, anything that looks like something they might have given is spread out over 10 years. They are a government on their last legs. They've got a year, at best, to deliver what they're saying is in the budget. Their promises are out to 10 years!

You can't trust a single thing they say. Go back to the night before the 2013 election: 'No cuts to the ABC. No cuts to the SBS.' What did we get again last night in this budget? Another $125 million worth of cuts to the ABC. Everywhere you look—on every page in the budget that the government put out last night—you will see falsehoods that simply will not match the rhetoric that we'll get in this place. Anyone who supports what the government are attempting to do to the Australian aged population really deserves to hang their head in shame. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.