Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always good to follow my friend and colleague, the member for Higgins. It was a great audition for Assistant Treasurer, don't you think, fellas? Oh, not much of a response from the backbench! It was about as brave a defence of this budget as you could get, because, of course, this is a budget of broken promises. It is a budget that the people of Australia did not expect; it is a budget of unfair cuts; it is a budget of regressive policies. It is a budget of austerity; it is a budget of increased taxes. Who would have thought that when Tony Abbott, on 2 December 2009, said:

…there will not be any new taxes as part of the Coalition's policies.

That is what those opposite—the member for Barker, the member for Deakin, I think it is—all went to the last election promising 'No new taxes.' And, yet, what do we find in this budget? Well, of course, we find increased taxes.

We know that this is a budget that smashed consumer confidence. We know that this is a budget that saw unemployment rise. We know that this is a budget brought down by an arrogant and out-of-touch Treasurer—a Treasurer who is trying to be tough. He was really tough and brutal with the car industry, and he had to be really tough and brutal with the Australian people in the budget—just to prove some political point. Of course, we know it is as an economic plan—a forward economic plan—with a flawed political strategy.

We know all this because we have seen the Treasurer going around the country and telling everybody little bon mots of wisdom, such as when he compared the GP tax to beer and cigarettes. He said:

One packet of cigarettes costs $22. That gives you three visits to the doctor. You can spend just over $3 on a middy of beer, so that's two middies of beer to go to the doctor.

And is a parent really going to deny their sick child a visit to the doctor which would be the equivalent payment of a couple of beers or one-third of a packet of cigarettes?

That is why the he told the Australian people in the SMH. That is the way he justified these regressive taxes—this attack on families' incomes.

And then, of course, we know what he said about fuel excise. He said:

The poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases .

But, I can tell you, that that is not the case for my constituents. That is not the case for the member for Barker's constituents. He has constituents on a very low income, and they rely on their cars because they live in the country and because there is no public transport. We all know that that is the case; it is just the Treasurer who does not know.

When people had the temerity to be anxious about this budget, we know what Joe said:

It's important that everyone has a bit of a chill-pill here and understands that the budget is a long-term structural plan…

No-one understands! They are all of Joe's quotes. So what started as a budget emergency has warped into an attempt to make that which is regressive progressive. And we saw him dodging the question today about whether his policies are progressive or regressive. We know that there is $2.2 billion in this budget of increased petrol taxes—some 17 billion over the last decade. And we did not hear anything from those opposite at the last election about any of that.

We know that this budget strategy is very, very awkward. So you have the Prime Minister out there talking about fires. He said:

You see, we had a fire, and the Budget is the fire brigade.

And then we have the trade minister saying that there is a sovereign risk to Australia because the Senate has the temerity to oppose the budget. And then we have Barnaby talking about melanomas. This government should learn that loose lips sink ships. This budget is affecting economic confidence; it is affecting jobs; it is affecting the security of everyday Australians.

We know that this is a budget of broken commitments. It is budget of broken promises; it is a budget of regressive taxation and brutal regressive cuts; it is a budget, fundamentally, built on lies. Everybody opposite knows that. That is why they are so quiet. That is why there are no interjections. That is why there is no response. It is just simply that they cannot defend the indefensible. That is why Joe's explanations are so tortured. That is why the budget strategy changes from week to week and from day to day—because this is a budget built on lies. It is built on lies, and you will pay for it. You will pay for it at the next election.

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