Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I would hate to say that the member for Wright was wrong! But it does appear that on the issue of second reading amendments, he and I have some talking to do.

The budget will hit people in developing countries—some of the world's poorest people, and it will benefit mining billionaires—some of the world's richest people. When this government came to office, it doubled the deficit. The four-year deficit between PEFO and MYEFO literally doubled—it increased by $68 billion. And so you would expect that, having doubled the deficit, the Treasurer might at least have come in here last night and halved it—taken it back to where it was when he took over, as judged by the Charter of Budget Honesty. But he did not do that. Last night's budget failed to halve the four-year deficit, and left it higher than it was when the coalition took over. If last night's budget had been honest, it would have shown the return-to-surplus trajectory under PEFO and compared that under this budget. That would have shown that—according to the secretaries of Treasury and Finance—we were going to be back in surplus in 2016-17 when the government took over, but now that is projected for 2017-18.

This is a budget where Australians are not saying, 'Which promise has been broken?' but, ;Which promise has been kept?' What is it that this Prime Minister thinks that he needs to keep faith with the Australian people on? 'No changes to pensions'—that pledge from 6 September last year does not seem to have been kept. The pledge by the Prime Minister that 'we are about reducing taxes, not increasing taxes,' from a doorstop on 20 November 2012—well, that has not been kept. What about, 'no cuts to health,' from an interview with the Prime Minister on 6 September last year? No, that promise has not been kept. 'No cuts to education,' from an interview with the Prime Minister on 6 September last year—no, that promise clearly has not been kept. And we can see the results from the budget papers last night, which show a distinct flattening of the education spending line outside the four-year period: the end of the Gonski reforms and the end of the National Plan for School Improvement that was put in place. The pledge, 'no cuts to the ABC or SBS'—well, that has been broken. That was a pledge again made by the Prime Minister on 6 September 2013. Again the pledge made by the Prime Minister on 4 May 2011, 'A dumb way to cut spending would be to threaten family benefits or to means test them further,' has been broken. The pledge by the Minister for Education on 26 August 2012, 'The coalition has no plans to increase university fees,' has been broken. That promise has been broken.

We see a litany of cuts across the board: the destruction of cultural programs—the Creative Australia programs; cuts to legal aid, which will see many vulnerable Australians unable to access legal assistance; and cuts to foreign aid, which will see some of the most vulnerable people in the world unable to access sanitation programs and vaccinations. Australian foreign aid saves lives and it will save fewer lives as a result of the decision made in this budget.

The fact is that when this government took over it inherited an economy where unemployment was among the lowest in the developed world. That was thanks to the stimulus that Labor put in place during the global financial crisis that saved 200,000 jobs and tens of thousands of small businesses. No-one at that stage thought we should have adhered to a two per cent spending cap. No country in the world did that. Of course, we did not either, but following the global financial crisis we put on a two per cent spending cap and, better than stick to it, we kept spending growth to 1.35 per cent. So when the coalition talk about reckless spending they are talking about the fiscal stimulus that they in part voted for and, let us face it, when we had the debate over the global financial crisis response those opposite were in many cases saying that what we needed was permanent tax cuts rather than temporary stimulus. Just imagine what state the books would be in if we had listened to that advice.

I spoke earlier about the decisions made by this government in the MYEFO statement, which included scrapping the $700 million measure on multinational profit shifting, a measure that would have seen a crackdown on companies using offshore banking units and debt shifting as a way of avoiding taxation. Australians are pleased to have the investment and the opportunities that come from multinationals in Australia. All we ask is that those multinationals pay a fair share of tax, but the government scrapped that $700 million measure and is instead pursuing cuts to some of the most vulnerable Australians. Yet last night there were still further decisions that will benefit those multinationals: not proceeding with changes to multiple entry consolidated groups, costing $140 million; deferral of offshore banking unit changes, costing the budget $180 million; deferral of the start date of legislative elements of the measure to improve tax compliance through third-party reporting and data matching, costing the budget $113 million—

See this speech in context