Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The second Abbott budget is just as unfair as the first, when it comes to families in Parramatta. Tony Abbott said that this budget would not come at the expense of the family budget, but once again he has broken his promise and again he has taken aim at those who can least afford it, low- and middle-income families. Mr Abbott wants to kick families off Family Tax Benefit Part B when their youngest child turns six and freeze the Family Tax Benefit for those who remain on it. These cuts alone will hurt up to 12,000 families in Parramatta. According to NATSEM modelling, a single-income family in my electorate of Parramatta on $65,000 a year will be as much as $6,000 worse off. And it is not just the cuts to Family Tax Benefit that will hurt families; the plans for $100,000 degrees, and the $80 billion ripped from schools and hospitals nationally will affect every family in my electorate.

Tony Abbott's rhetoric on families may have changed, but his cuts to families have not. The cuts to families and the cuts from schools, hospitals and universities have well and truly failed the fairness test again, and they have failed the families of Parramatta.