Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are, four days into the government's new era of so-called good government, four days which have been characterised by policy confusion, chaos, disunity and a stubborn insistence on sticking with the same failed, unfair policies that defined the first 519 days of bad government led by a shockingly incompetent Prime Minister—a terrible government which attempted to impose a GP tax that will add an extra $5.5 million or more every year to the medical bills of families in my electorate and cut the Medicare rebate for every doctor; a dreadful government which cut the schoolkids bonus for 4,500 families in my electorate that desperately needed it; an awful government which cut $157 million for family day care, drastically forcing up fees of council run family day care services in my electorate to rates almost equivalent to centre based long day care. This is a crying shame. Families in my community cannot afford or endure the brutal cuts this lousy government has imposed. They want good government. They deserve good government. But so far it is impossible to distinguish it from the atrocious government that spent 519 days surprising the community with a string of broken promises and unfair cuts and a callous disinterest in the basic concept of fairness—a government that promised no shocks, no surprises. When will it end?