Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Anniversaries are important historical markers, providing an opportunity for us all to reflect. This week marks the two-year anniversary of the election of the Abbott Liberal government. Like a marriage that has never lived up to the hopes and expectations of those involved, the last two years have been littered with broken promises, deception and duplicity.

Unemployment is up, with more people out of work today than at any other time in the last 20 years. More than 800,000 Australians do not have a job. Economic growth is wallowing, confidence is down, the budget deficit is up—it has, in fact, doubled—and the overall tax burden on Australians is up.

This is a government that came to power promising an instantaneous adrenalin charge to our economy. Instead, under Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey, the economy is flatlining. We all know that the Prime Minister said what he would do before he was elected, but it is important today to reflect on what he has actually done over the last two years. He said no cuts to education, yet he cut $30 billion out of schools, including $195 million from local schools in my electorate of Newcastle.

Today there are 100,000 fewer apprentices and traineeships across the country and the government continues to push for Australian students to pay $100,000 for degrees. The Prime Minister has said there would be no cuts to health, but instead he cut $50 billion from hospitals, including $150 million from the Hunter New England Area Health Service. And, of course, there is his GP tax, first floated as an outright co-payment, now being delivered by stealth as a freeze through the Medicare rebate.

The Prime Minister said there would be no cuts to the ABC or SBS, yet he cut $1 billion in funding to both, with 1233 ABC radio station, in my electorate, losing one-third of its staff. The list goes on. He told Australians they would have access to the National Broadband Network by the end of 2016, at a cost of $29.5 million. Now the cost has nearly doubled. The roll-out will not be finished for years and, today, not one home in Newcastle has been connected to the NBN.

Finally, the biggest betrayal of all followed the Prime Minister's pre-election promise that no worker's pay and conditions would be threatened under his government. Instead, he is trying to cut the penalty rates of every worker in the hospitality, retail and entertainment sectors and has introduced Work Choices on water. His own Minister for Employment publicly condoned the sacking of workers by text messages. The last two years are littered with broken promises, confected budget emergencies, three-word slogans in place of serious public policy, ideological and overreached at every turn. That is all this government has got to offer after two years in office.