Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. The fact of the matter is that there is no such document in existence. There is no 'Treasury analysis'. It does not exist. The allegation that this document which has been released to the media is Treasury analysis is patiently false. It does not exist. That is a statement of fact.

There is a pattern of behaviour here from this Treasurer. He sneakily releases these documents and claims they are Treasury analysis. Then, when further questions are asked, it turns out they were written in his office or the Prime Minister's office, not down at the Treasury. The Treasury should not be politicised in this way. The Treasury is a fine institution which has served the people of Australia well for 114 years. It is not the political plaything of this Treasurer, and he should not politicise its name in an attempt to justify his atrocious policies. If he wants to defend his policies, he should stand up for them, not claim that he has Treasury analysis which does not exist. If the government want to do little spreadsheets on the back of an envelope in their offices and work out little false calculations and then release them, that is up to them. But stand up for them. Admit to the Australian people what you are doing.

The fact of the matter is that there is analysis of this budget, and it is by NATSEM, a respected modelling outfit. They have actually been referred to by the Prime Minister as one of the most respected economic modelling outfits in this country. The evidence from them is stark: over 100,000 families in the lowest quintile will see $43 cut from their weekly budgets every week. If this is your idea of cost-of-living relief, next time, don't bother, I say to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly. Remember, the Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box and said they were 'riding to the rescue' of the Australian people. Well, don't turn up next time! This is what happens when those opposite ride to the rescue of the Australian people. A sole parent with an income of $55,000, with two kids, one in primary school and one in high school, will face a $20,000 hit to their budget. By just 2015, this family will face a 10 per cent annual hit to their current family income, or more than $5,700 a year. A couple on a single income of $75,000, with two kids, one not yet in school and one in primary school, will face a $2,000 decline in annual family income in 2015. By 2017-18, this family will have $7,400 less income than they would have had prior to this budget.

They are the facts. I do not need to leak Treasury analysis which does not exist, as the Treasurer needs to do. I am happy to stand at this dispatch box and defend the analysis which has been commissioned by the opposition from a respected modeller. We will do that—and the Treasurer should have the courage to do the same, instead of leaking analysis which does not exist. Ben Phillips from NATSEM has stated:

We'd estimate around 1.2 million families that would be on average around $3,000 a year worse off by 2017-18, whereas the top income groups—so the top 20 per cent of households—would have either no impact or a very small positive impact—

a very small positive impact. That is what the independent analysis shows. That is what the documents that we are prepared to stand behind show, documents that have been released publicly and transparently. Let the Treasurer pick a hole in them. Let the Treasurer come in here and find an error, and let him argue that out with NATSEM, those respected modellers. He is not prepared to do so. What he does do is engage in Orwellian rhetoric and release to newspapers documents which are claimed to be Treasury analysis, which are clearly not.

As I said, this is a budget which has been rejected right across the country not only by people in communities, but by premiers and state treasurers who are outraged, rightly, at their treatment by this government, the arrogant treatment of this Prime Minister and this Treasurer of the elected premiers of the states. I do not have universally positive views of all the premiers but they are people of accomplishment and they do not deserve to be treated this way, and the states they represent do not deserve to be treated in this arrogant and offhand way by this Prime Minister, who says they should be 'grown-ups'. That is an insult to the state premiers and to the states they represent.

Mike Keating, a respected former bureaucrat who has had to deal with some very difficult issues and deliver very difficult policies in his time, said:

This Government has cut the bottom rungs of the ladder of opportunity.

And of course he is right about that. This a fundamentally unfair document which the Treasurer and the Prime Minister do not even understand. They do not understand their own policy. Last week we saw the Prime Minister in a public relations triumph going out and blitzing talkback radio right across the country, getting basic facts wrong and telling university students that the cuts would not apply to them, when they clearly do. He said that because they were going to start university next year, the cuts would not apply to them. But they clearly do apply to them. We saw the Treasurer claim that the GP tax would not be paid by people with chronic illness. Wrong, just plain wrong. If the Prime Minister and the Treasurer do not understand the policies they are introducing, why should the Australian people pay for them?

Then the Treasurer in the budget papers did not include the tables, which have traditionally been included in every single budget since 2005, on the impact of their changes on families with different incomes, showing how fair the budget is or otherwise. Peter Costello did it. Wayne Swan did it. Certainly in economic statements under treasurers since 2005 those things have been included—and in budgets in particular. But it did not occur in this budget. When the Treasurer was asked about this he said, 'That is just not right. You cannot believe everything you read in the Sydney Morning Herald.' The Sydney Morning Herald is not the one with the credibility problem here. It is the Treasurer who has misled the Australian people here. It is the Treasurer who has produced a budget which very conveniently does not include those tables in the budget documents, because they would show just how unfair this budget is.

We just heard again from the member for Wright saying that Australians should make these contributions and these tough decisions and these payments—for example, the GP tax—to get the budget back on an even footing, to get it fiscally healthy and sound. There is only one problem with that, apart from the fact that it is fundamentally unfair and a trashing of the principle of universal health care.

Mr Buchholz interjecting—

The $7 GP tax does not even go to the budget bottom line; it goes to a new fund. Such is the budget emergency, they can trash the universality of Medicare and not even use the money to return the budget to surplus. They want to create a new fund to finance health and medical research. Who would disagree with more money for health and medical research? Nobody would. But the cures of today should not be paid for by taxing the sick of today, nor should the cures of tomorrow.

Mr Buchholz interjecting—

The member for Wright and other honourable members should recognise that this GP tax is not being used to return the budget to surplus at all. These are the priorities and the value judgements of this government.

The other thing they are doing of course is introducing an expensive and extravagant an unfair paid parental leave scheme, sending cheques of $50,000 to people, who may be millionaires, to have babies. Budgets are about priorities and this is the priority of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. They are saying to people, 'If you are under 30, we cannot afford to put you on Newstart. If you are a pensioner, we cannot afford to index your pension fairly. If you are a family, we cannot afford to let you go to the doctor for free. If you are a family on a low income or a single income, we need to take money from you. But if you are a millionaire, we can send you a cheque for $50,000 if you have a baby.' These are the priorities of this government. This is what this Prime Minister and this Treasurer are foisting on the Australian people and, I suspect, foisting on all those members opposite who do not actually support this policy but do not have the courage to stand up against this extravagant policy. It shows the warped and twisted priorities of this government. A budget is about choices and this government has made the choice to harm Australia's pensioners and, despite the protestations of the member for Wright, to take money from them. If you introduce unfair indexation, you are taking money from Australia's pensioners. You are saying to Australia's families, 'We will take money from you because we are going to charge you to go to the doctor.' You are saying to Australians, 'We are going to take money from you by forcing an underclass of those people under 30 and denying them any benefit when it comes to Newstart.' These are the priorities and values of this government, whilst sending cheques out for $50,000, taking money away from single-income families across Australia's cities and regions and rural areas.

I know there are members opposite who know the impact of this. They know the impact of the family tax benefit changes and how bad they will be right across the country and in rural and regional areas as well, and what are they doing about it? They can do something about it. They can come and sit on this side of the chamber and vote accordingly. They can actually have the courage of their convictions if they have got them and stand up for their constituents. They can stand up against this government and this Prime Minister. They can roll them on the paid parental leave scheme. They can sit on this side and do the heavy lifting with this side of the House when it comes to defending Australians who deserve a better budget and a better government than the one they have got.

The Australian people have seen the values of this government over the last fortnight since the budget was delivered and they do not like them. They do not like the values of this government. It is not the government they were promised and it is not the government they deserve. They deserve so much better. Fundamentally, they deserve a government that is honest with them, that is upfront with them, which tells them before the election how much money they are going to take from them, instead of the false and misleading systematic campaign that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer masterminded before the election and the fundamentally unfair manifesto which is this budget, which takes from people and gives to others, which gives $50,000 cheques to some but takes away $20,000 over the next four years from others. These are values which the government is welcome to defend, but we will fight. We will fight in this place and the other place and across the community because it is an unfair budget.

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