Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about the Turnbull Liberal government's blatant disregard for my home state of Tasmania when they brought down their budget last month. Tasmanians were right to be disappointed with the 2017-18 budget. It completely left Tasmania off the map. The only winners are high-income earners and big business. There is no new funding, no plan for jobs and no relief for working Tasmanians struggling to make ends meet. Tasmania missed out on any new funding because, quite frankly, the Tasmanian Liberal Senate team has no influence at all here in Canberra.

Tasmania has the oldest population and the highest rate of chronic illnesses in the country. Yet what have we seen from this government? Nothing but cuts when it comes to health. The Liberal government has failed to meet its responsibility to ensure that all Tasmanians have access to high-quality health care. The budget does nothing to fix the crisis in our hospitals and the government's delay in reversing their cuts to Medicare only serves to put Tasmanians' health at further risk. The Turnbull government have zero credibility when it comes to health care in this country. First they created a taskforce to privatise Medicare and now they have created one to slash and cut hospital funding. They are hell-bent on making people pay more for their health care. They have succeeded in doing that, with Tasmanians paying almost $6 more every time they see their GP. That is a total out-of-pocket cost of almost $37 every time they see their GP. Tasmanians cannot afford this.

Health care was not the only thing that the Prime Minister lied about to win the election. The Liberals have a long history of backflipping on education promises. I think we can all agree that the federal budget—