Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is absolutely predictable rhetoric from government senators who stick their fingers in their ears and sing 'la, la, la' or try to interject whenever someone mentions the biggest global economic downturn since the Great Depression. It is not only predictable but also the height of hypocrisy from a government that sought permission from the parliament for a 67 per cent increase in government debt—and then sought permission for unlimited debt. It is hypocritical coming from a government that has, this financial year, added $17 billion to the budget deficit. And it is hypocritical coming from a government that is telling pensioners, school children and families they will have to make sacrifices so that millionaires can get paid $75,000 to have children, so the same millionaires can get a tax break on their superannuation; so the government can hand over $8 billion to the Reserve Bank, against the advice of Treasury; so the government can subsidise polluters through its inefficient and expensive Direct Action Plan; so the government can tell polluters they do not have to pay for their pollution; and so the government can cut taxes for billionaire miners who make superprofits.

Those pensioners, families and school children who are now making sacrifices will have to wait to find out the worst of these cuts. The commission's report is kept hidden, because the government does not want Australians to know what it has in store. They refuse to reveal how much funding they will cut to schools, how much they will cut pensions and how much they will slash the budget of the ABC—all to fund tax breaks and parental leave for millionaires and billionaires. This government has its priorities very wrong. Schools, pensions and disability care are not waste. Tax breaks and subsidies for millionaires are.

It is time for those opposite to come clean and reveal to the Australian public where the axe will fall. They did not tell Australians before the weekend's state elections. They should at least tell Western Australians before they go to the polls to elect six senators. Western Australians have the right to know—before they vote—whether the Abbott axe will fall on their pensions, schools or essential public services. If they do not know the Liberal-National coalition's secret-cuts agenda, if they do not know how it will affect them, then they should not vote for them. It is time for voters in Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, and across the country, to be treated with honesty and with some integrity by this government. Honesty is in short supply when it comes to those opposite and their coalition colleagues in the House.

Despite the deficit of honesty on the other side, I will give Mr Abbott credit for telling the truth about one thing. He said before the election that he wanted to lead a government that will 'under promise, and over deliver'. When it comes to Mr Abbott's agenda of savage cuts, he has achieved exactly that. He has delivered far more cuts than he promised. And there are more to come.