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

Prime Minister Tony Abbott once told this parliament:

The Australian people want a government that is competent and trustworthy. The test of a trustworthy government is: does it keep its commitments?

Far from keeping its commitments, this government has told more tall tales than Herodotus—but, unlike that great Greek liar, it only took a few months, not centuries, for this government's dishonesty to become powerfully obvious.

The government promised it would shed 12,000 jobs from the Australian Public Service. That would have been bad enough, but it turns out to have been a ruse. They are cutting 16,500 jobs—4,500 more jobs lost—and not a peep from Senator Seselja, I might add.

And then there was the promise that none of those job cuts would come through forced redundancies. The Prime Minister looked public servants in the eye and told them, 'I really want to stress that we are not talking about forced redundancies. We are talking about not replacing everyone who leaves, that's all.' That promise has been broken several times over, starting with over 44 sackings at Treasury and 75 staff from the Australian Valuation Office, and I do not doubt there will be more to come.

This government has broken its promise of a surplus in every year by doubling the deficit. It has broken its promise of 'no cuts to health or education', with $80 billion of cuts to health and education. It has broken its promise on a 25 megabits per second NBN by 2016, and broken its promise not to cut the ABC and SBS—maybe because ABC Fact Check has just added four new broken promises to their broken promise tracker. He denies his broken promises, which reminds you of Tennessee Williams: 'The only thing worse than a liar is a liar who is also a hypocrite.'