Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be speaking on this matter of public importance about the government's incompetent handling of its unfair budget. Unlike those opposite, I am going to speak to it and about it—not just incoherent ramblings like we just heard.

Since this unfair budget was announced, we have really seen this incompetent government move from disaster to disaster, day after day. Whether it is the bank levy or education funding or Medicare, they are mostly two things: incompetent and unfair. That is certainly the feedback that I hear in my electorate all the time. The Australian public know it. They are certainly onto them and they are highlighting it and telling us that all the time.

The fact is also that this budget completely fails the economic credibility test in so many different ways. That is another thing that most Australians are certainly aware of. The big joke this week has been the Treasurer and his $2 billion bank levy black hole. That certainly has been highlighted this week, and it really does highlight the incompetence of this Treasurer and this government. It is certainly clear that we see that again today. It is not every day that a Treasurer loses $2 billion, but that is what he has done. It is not just us on the Labor side saying this. Investment banks are saying that there is likely to be a $2 billion black hole. They said that just weeks after the budget was released.

Remember that this is a government that promised to fix the budget. That is what they said. There was lots of talk about jobs and growth. We heard it everywhere. Everyone said 'jobs and growth' all over the place. Well, none of those things have happened. In fact, the budget fails the economic credibility test. We know that gross debt will now pass half a trillion dollars in the coming months. We know that growth is down, employment is down, wages growth is down, unemployment is up and the deficit has gone up. So they are not fixing anything—in fact, it is all getting worse. All those things they promised to do, none of that has happened. That is why they are so incompetent.

We have talked a lot, of course, about their bank tax. We have made it very clear—we have heard this particularly from our shadow Treasurer and others—that we will not stop their new tax on the banks. We are very worried about the fact that they failed to put in place any safeguards at all that will stop those fees being passed on to Australians—another example of their incompetence. Certainly, that is something we are very worried about

The heart of this budget is really absolute unfairness. It is an unfair budget that delivers tax handouts for multinationals and millionaires while hurting everyday families—families like those in my electorate of Richmond. The only people who will see any better days in this budget are the very wealthy and big business—that is it! No-one else. And if you particularly compare that to electorates like mine, and if you look at rural and regional Australia, how unfair is it for them? How has this government walked away from them? How has the National Party, particularly, walked away from them?

Who would have thought we would see the National Party in this place standing up for the multimillionaires and for big business, forgetting all those farmers and country folk they are supposed to represent? Well, they have walked away from all of them. I would certainly like to highlight that we have seen that very starkly in my electorate over the past couple of weeks when, of course, we have had the devastating impact of the flooding following Cyclone Debbie, which has devastated many areas of the North Coast of New South Wales.

This government and this National Party, at a state and federal level, have failed to provide sufficient resources, funding and a commitment to fix communities that are desperate. It really is very incompetent. There was a lot of concern that there was nothing in the budget to adequately help these communities that are indeed struggling. Again, it highlights the incompetence of this government.

When we turn to the budget and we look at it, the government made some choices. They chose to continue with these tax handouts for big business while increasing taxes for workers. They did nothing meaningful to tackle big issues, like the housing affordability crisis. Compare that to our initiatives around negative gearing and capital gains tax. But there was nothing from them at all.

And we also see their cuts. There is $22 billion cut from Australian schools and cuts to universities. How unfair can you get, when you are cutting $22 billion from our schools? That will be devastating for kids in areas like mine, when every school will have a major cut. It is over $40 million for the public schools in my electorate.

So we get this government running around all the time and saying that they are all about fairness and all about providing more for people. It is completely untrue—totally untrue! What they are actually doing is making it harder, particularly for those families in regional and rural areas. I think that something like the schools funding and the cuts to universities really highlights that as well—how difficult it will be for those families in regional and rural areas.

But do you know what? In those regional and rural areas, they know that the only party standing up for them is the Labor Party. We have their backs, we are looking after them and we will keep fighting this government and this government's incompetence.

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