Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More than nine months after the Abbott government handed down its unfair budget, it is still hanging over their heads. That is because it is fundamentally flawed. It cuts into our social fabric and Australians are not happy. But it is especially bad for those who can least afford it: low- and middle-income families, single-income families, single parents.

Despite the Prime Minister saying that families would be front and centre of his agenda this year, his budget cuts $5.5 billion from family budgets. A single-income family on $65,000 with two children will lose about $6,000 per year thanks to the Abbott government's budget. The schoolkids bonus has also been cut, which is absolutely outrageous. It leaves more than 6½ thousand families in my electorate $410 a year worse off for every eligible primary school student and $820 a year worse off for every secondary school student.

And, to make it worse, the Prime Minister is imposing a new fuel tax and wants to increase the costs for families when they go to the doctor. I quote here from one of my constituents:

I have been a cancer patient since 1990, I have a rare tumour which requires me to travel to Sydney once a month to consult with Specialist and undergo scans … This costs me approximately $80 per trip, now thanks to the Government which is proposing to increase tax on petrol my costs are again heading upwards.

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