Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the first two years, this Abbott-Turnbull government has wreaked devastation upon the household budgets of people within my electorate. There have been over $80 billion worth of cuts to hospitals, health services, schools and education; the devastation of the proposed GP tax and its younger brother, the freeze in Medicare rebates; $100,000 fees for universities; and family tax benefit cuts which are going to cut over $4,000 from the household budgets of families within my electorate. And now they are proposing to put in place a new cost burden, which will increase the cost of everything from water to gas, electricity, petrol, school fees and even medicines. Every time you stand at the checkout at the supermarket, this Treasurer and this Prime Minister will be there with their hand out saying, 'We'll have five per cent more for everything.'

An average household already pays over $5,800 in GST. When it goes up to 15 per cent, households will be paying an additional $3,000 to this Treasurer and this Prime Minister, because they cannot get their numbers or their facts straight. Let us be very, very clear: at the next election there will be 150 people wearing Labor Party tickets campaigning to stop this terrible GST, and there will be 150 Liberal and coalition members— (Time expired)