Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Which I will support because I think it is better than a lot of the other measures. But if we were designing it we would have designed it a lot better than this. We would not have had a loophole so that what is a three-year measure will really only be paid for one actual year. We would have fixed up the fringe benefits tax. We would have looked at a proper program as part of a broader taxation review, not a fig leaf when we got to the end of a budget process and realised that, 'Oh, we are only attacking middle income earners, we are only attacking the young, we are only attacking the disabled, we are only attacking those who are in the bottom quartile of this society. We had better create something big and something exciting for the higher income earners so that we can say we are sharing the pain.' Well, Minister, the pain is not being shared. The pain is not being shared in this budget. It is an unfair budget, it is an unequal budget. That is why people are up in arms. That is why people out there in Australian society—you have seen the polling, you have seen the numbers—are outraged, because there is no fairness. You are now in a situation where even your own MPs, even your own back bench, are getting up and using this chamber to say, 'We are unhappy with this direction. We are unhappy with this budget. We are unhappy with these measures.' Minister, how can you deliver a budget when not even your own MPs support you?