Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate because the government did not keep its promises not to make those particular cuts. They also brought down a budget that attacked the most vulnerable members of our community, and they knew they were doing it because they knew from the information they had that those who were paying the most were the most vulnerable in this country. The situation would be worse if this Senate did not stand up to oppose those vicious budgetary attacks on the most vulnerable in our community. Our most vulnerable, however, are suffering from the cuts that the government has made to date, such as the cuts to the Department of Social Services—cuts to the vital services that communities need to survive, and cuts to emergency relief support services. Cuts to the programs that support and provide services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are cutting very deeply into the community, particularly when you combine those with the cuts to social services and the health cuts.

People have inundated my office with concerns, and they continue to ring to tell me of the concerns they have over the budget, and in particular the impact it is having on their lives. When you look at the cuts to health you see that the government broke their promise. They keep trying to break their promises on health, despite the fact that the measures they concoct do not get support from the community—measures such as co-payments and changes to rebates on times of consultations. And now they are trying $5 cuts to rebates and indexation freezes, or freezes to increases in rebates to 2018.

So they continue to try and break that promise. And who does that hurt? It hurts the most vulnerable, low-income members of our community—yet again hitting them. The government may think these cuts are little but they are immense to people who are struggling to make ends meet. Then the government made promises about no cuts to pensions. The attempted to bring in not only cuts to the indexation of age pensions, but also cuts for struggling single parents and those on disability support pensions. They were cuts, and the community was not fooled for one minute.

There were attacks on families—cuts to family tax benefits, again—and now the government is attempting to blackmail the Senate. We will see what is in the budget tonight but there have been comments in the media saying that we, the Senate, have to pass their cruel measures—again, measures that impact on single parents through cuts family tax benefit part B; again, attacking the most vulnerable in our communities.

Their piece de resistance was their move, which is still on the books, to kick young people under 30 off income support for six months. I wonder if the government is going to try and say, 'Oh, don't you worry about that; it's only going to be a month in this budget,' or whether they actually do see the absolute folly in that measure and finally take it off the books. We will wait and see.

Then there are the issues around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the government's promises not to cut health. What do they do? They cut $270 million from the provision of health services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. That is, for me, a double broken promise because this is the Prime Minister who came in saying that he was going to be the Prime Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and would deliver for them. Here we go! They have delivered chaos in the Indigenous Advancement Strategy. They have delivered cuts to health services. What do they do? They go to Andrew Forrest to give us the answers. And what is going to happen with the health and welfare card in this budget?

Who really believed the government when they said there would be no cuts to the ABC and SBS? Really, it is a joke that anybody would even believe that this government would not do that. They were always gunning for the ABC and SBS. You only had to look at comments by members of the opposition at the time to know very well that they would make cuts to the ABC. It was quite obvious that they were going to do that.

I move to Gonski and education. Again, who can actually believe the government when they make any commitments on anything?