Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect that the member for Fairfax and I have very different outlooks on a number of things. I think that we would consider policies and issues from very different perspectives, and our backgrounds are probably very, very different. But the one thing that I agree 100 per cent with him about is the fact that honesty in politics is so important. We must be honest. We are role models for all Australian people. If they cannot look to their government to be honest, I do not think that as a country, as a nation, we have much of a future.

It is very interesting when you look at this budget and particularly this component of the budget—and I will talk a little bit about it in a moment—and you consider that it is based on a manufactured crisis. It is based on a false premise. It is based on information that is totally incorrect, a manufactured crisis that is saying that the world is about to end, that we are in a terrible financial situation in Australia. It is simply not true. I join with the member for Fairfax in encouraging members of the back bench to actually visit some of those sites that he was talking about to gather the data. Look at the fact that we have the third-lowest debt in the OECD. Look at the expenditure on health and welfare and compare it to other countries. And look at what we get for our expenditure on health: universal health care, so that nobody in Australia has to die because they do not have money. Look at the US and compare ours to their system, where, if you do not have the financial ability to pay for treatment, you quite often die. Is this the kind of country that we as a nation are aspiring to be?

I certainly was not elected to parliament to deliver that to the Australian people. I was elected to parliament to make this place a better place, and I do not think that this budget does that. I do not think this budget delivers anyway, and I would have to agree with the member for Fairfax 100 per cent that it is based on untruths; it is based on lies; it is based on false premises; and members of the government are perpetuating those lies and ensuring that the Australian people are not given the true picture.

But I have news for them. The Australian people are not believing what the government says. In my street stalls and through the internet and while meeting with constituents, I am being told that they do not believe what this government is saying. They think that they have been lied to. They feel that they have been deceived. They do not believe that a government, or a Prime Minister, or a political party, should say one thing before an election and another thing after the election. And that is exactly what this government has done.

I listened to the member for Fairfax's contribution to the debate. He is a man that has always been committed to the conservative side of politics; a man that has his roots in the Liberal Party; a man who started out as an 18-year-old who, for a while, relied on a Newstart or unemployment benefit or whatever it was called at that time—and I look at the great success that he has had in life, and the enormous contribution that he has made to this country. I look at families where the major breadwinner may lose their job—they may be under 30 and they may have three children. What redress will they have when there is no money coming into the house? How do they fit into this government's stereotypical ideological picture of who a person under 30 years of age is and what they should be doing? This creates real hardship for real people. This is an uncaring government, a government that really does not get the big picture.

The legislation we have before us today, the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill—once again, based on that fallacy that there actually is a need for repair, and that we are in a crisis—looks to put a levy on people with income that is over $180,000 a year. Once again, I emphasise: it is a manufactured crisis. Australia has a AAA rating with all rating agencies. That is not always the case. There are only 13 other countries in the world that enjoy this AAA rating. It is not something that is handed out based on the fact that it would be nice for Australia to have that rating; it is earned. It is strong economic management that leads to a AAA rating. It is a strong economy that leads to a AAA rating—not a manufactured crisis that says that Australia is in a dreadful situation.

Deputy Speaker, if you look at why we have a deficit, there is one event in Australia's history that those on the other side of this parliament seem to have forgotten—that is, the GFC or global financial crisis. At that particular time, if action had not been taken to prevent Australia going into a recession, thousands of Australians would have lost their jobs. Our economy would have come to a standstill. There is one conversation that I remember vividly. I had a builder come into my office. He had a company where he employed in excess of 20 people and he said to me: 'I don't vote Labor. I have never voted Labor'. But he said that the actions that the Labor government had taken—in investing in infrastructure, in creating a situation where there was building work available—meant that his company continued to operate. He said he would have gone bankrupt if that investment had not been made. His company continued to operate. His employees continued to be employed and, as such, Australia rode out the global financial crisis.

If members of the government would like to do a bit of research and compare the taxing regime of a government with the taxing regimes of the opposition, you will find that the Howard government was a much higher taxing government than Labor. If you compare what this government has done, you will find that it is a higher taxing government than Labor. The legislation we have before us today is a testament to that.

I cannot stand in this parliament and be in a situation where I see so much hardship, so much pain, being delivered to people in the electorate that I represent. This is a broken promise. This is a lie. This is just a further example of a lie that was told before the election. The hurt and hardship that is going to be inflicted on Australians who are on an average income and who go to work each day, and on pensioners like the member for Fairfax spoke about—people who have made an enormous contribution to our country—is much greater than a two per cent levy on high-income earners who will be able to work out a way to avoid it.

I would like to share with the House an email I received last night from one of my constituents. She wrote:

I am a concerned grandmother writing with regard to the FTB B changes in the Abbott Government's budget. Actually I am concerned and outraged about much of the budget, however will focus on this particular issue for now.

She goes on to say that she has a son, a daughter-in-law and a four-year-old granddaughter who live in Perth, the most expensive city in Australia. Her son is a fly-in fly-out worker. He does eight days on, six days off. Her daughter-in-law stays at home for a very good reason: she cares for their daughter who suffers from a rare and complex form of febrile convulsions, so she is making a big contribution by caring and loving her child who is not well.

Her son earns $102,000 a year. They pay $30,000 for a small three-bedroom house. Her son pays $27,000 tax and $8,000 HECS. They have got a personal loan that costs them $5,000 a year and that leaves them with $577 per week to keep a motor car on the road, utilities, clothes, health costs, food and medication. If you have got a child who has febrile convulsions, obviously you need to invest in life-saving medication. This grandmother goes on to say that she finds this particular aspect of the budget—and all of the budget—outrageous and a gross inequity. I think this example shows the inequity that will exist. They will be losing Family Tax Benefit B, and somebody on $180,000 a year will be paying two per cent on a temporary levy.

This budget as a whole makes me sad. There is a tax on pensioners. I had pensioners ringing my office before the budget was brought down, terrified about what it would contain. Since the budget has been brought down, the office has been contacted on an ongoing basis by pensioners who just do not know how they are going to make ends meet.

On the changes to Medicare: universal health care is imperative to ensure the health of our nation. If you do not address health needs when they occur, if a person is sick, does not go to the doctor and puts it off, it means that they are going to get sicker and the cost is going to be greater. A $7 GP tax is just going to make it harder for families, harder for pensioners and harder for Australia as a whole. This is a backward-looking budget. This is a backward-looking tax. This is something that the government should hang its head in shame about.

The Australian people will judge the government at the next election. They do not have short-term-memory problems. They will understand how harsh, how cruel, this government has been and how it has attacked the Australian people at every turn. It is not good enough, and I condemn the government.

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