House debates

Thursday, 30 October 2014

Matters of Public Importance

Budget

4:03 pm

Photo of Ed HusicEd Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

That is right, as the member for Newcastle rightly interjects: they will not come within cooee of that emissions target reduction. What they will do is blow a hole in the budget, because billions will go and be transferred to polluters. They will build a drain into the budget through this.

The way they have set up the system tells you everything about this government. What side does this government fall on? Does it fall on the side of average Australians or does it fall on the side of big business? It is never on the side of average Australians. It is always on the side of gifting big polluters or big companies. They had a chance, for instance, when they came into office to deal with profit shifting by multinationals. What did they do? They turned their back on it and they turned their back on $1 billion of revenue. They had a chance, for instance, to deal with wealthy superannuants and change their taxation treatment. They turned their back on it and what did they do? They went to the low-income superannuants. They took way from low-income superannuants the only modest support given to them. They pinched that money off low-income people but made sure the big end of town was protected. Now they are paying the big polluters and subsidising them.

They do not care about any sort of meaningful action. What about subsidies? We heard, for instance, that this government was not into subsidies. So if you are working on a manufacturing line and building a car, you were guilted out of your job by this government. The Treasurer on that side of the House at the dispatch box dared Holden to leave the country, saying that the government was no longer going to support them but that they would support people who pollute; they will give them billions. The 50,000 whose livelihoods depended on a viable auto industry in this country lost their jobs, but the big polluters will get the money. They will be supported in that endeavour. It is truly heinous that that is allowed to continue.

Again, every time it comes to making a decision in the interest of ordinary Australia, those on that side of the House are not there. They bring in a budget that attacks family tax payments. They bring in a budget that attacks people who have to go to a doctor by making them pay a $7 co-payment to see the doctor. They bring in a budget that will take money away from schools.

In the electorate I represent, $270 million will be lost over 10 years under their budget. The people I represent are the worst affected in Western Sydney—with $270 million taken out with this budget. Billions have been taken out from hospitals. I cannot even get a scanner to detect cancers in people in my local hospital. The money has been taken away. The money that supports those hospitals is gone. When people look for the money that they need in their local community for the things that they really hope will make their lives easier, it ain't there. But, if someone is going to be pumping out pollution and affecting the way in which our climate operates, there will be money there for that. This is the tragedy that is occurring. Average Australians will lose and the big interests win. The decisions of those opposite are basically causing all that. (Time expired)

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