Bill Shorten Emerges From Obscurity To Deliver Stirring Budget Smack-Down
"Australians know a lie when they hear one. They can spot a phony when they see one. And they know when they’ve been deceived."
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, who until this very moment has been completely lacking in newsworthy quotes, slammed the Coalition in last night’s Budget Reply speech, calling it “a budget of broken promises built on lies”.
In a surprisingly stirring speech from the politician who most people picture in their heads as a blurred-out face with a question mark atop it, Shorten vowed that the Labor opposition would team up with the Greens to halt key changes proposed in Joe Hockey’s budget, including the changes to Newstart, the raised pension age, and the $7 charge for seeing a GP.
“Tonight I rise to speak on behalf of millions of Australians who feel shocked and angry,” he began. “Shocked by the brutality of this Government’s attack on their way of life. Angry at a Prime Minister who pretended to be on their side. This Budget divides our Parliament. More importantly, it will divide our nation.”
“This is just the beginning, turning Australia into a place most of us won’t recognise – a colder, meaner, narrower place. Losing our sense of fairness and our sense of community. I believe in a different Australia.”
Shorten decried the mythological economic crisis that had paved the way for the Coalition’s budget, which squared an ideological attack on Australia’s most vulnerable. “If you need to see a doctor, you will pay more. If you need to buy medicine, you will pay more. If you go to work and earn a good wage, you will pay more. If you have a family, your support will be cut. If you lose your job, your support will be cut. If you are a young person, you will be left behind. If you rely on a pension, you will be punished. And if you drive a car, even for that, you will have to pay more.
“And if you relied on the Prime Minister’s promises– then you were betrayed.”
“Say what you like, Prime Minister. Spin as hard as you can. Australians know a lie when they hear one. They can spot a phony when they see one. And they know when they’ve been deceived.”
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On The Cost Of Living
“This is a Budget that will push up the cost of living for every Australian family. A Budget drawn up by people who have never lived from paycheque to paycheque. Never sat at the kitchen table with a stack of bills to work out which ones they can put off and which ones have to be paid to avoid being cut off. People who don’t understand that increasing petrol tax will make the school run, the commute and driving the kids to weekend sport more expensive.
So I say to the Prime Minister, don’t lecture Australian families about hard choices. Do something to help them make ends meet.”
On Families:
“NATSEM modelling shows that a couple with a single income of $65,000 and two kids in school will have over $1700 cut from their family budget. Add in health costs, and the Prime Minister is cutting nearly $40 from their weekly budget, every week. And under this Budget, the cuts will get deeper and deeper, more than tripling to almost $120 a week by the time of the next election.
In 2016 this family will suffer cuts of over $6,000 per year. That’s around one in every ten dollars of the family budget gone. This is not a Budget shaped by the everyday life of real people.”
On Medicare:
“The Prime Minister once claimed he was the best friend that Medicare ever had, but this Budget proves he is ideologically opposed to Medicare and its central principle of universality.
“The government proposes to establish a $7 GP Tax for visits to a general practitioner. The justification is that the Medicare system is too expensive and requires greater patient contribution. Yet the Budget reveals that not one dollar of the GP Tax will be returned to recurrent health spending. Not one dollar.
“The GP tax is being applied simply to break the universality of Medicare. The kind of thing you would expect from American Tea Party Republicans – not from a Liberal Party formerly committed to Medicare.”
On Schools And Hospitals:
“The Budget papers reveal an $80 billion cut to schools and hospitals – a cut for which there had been no discussion, no forewarning, not a shred of consultation.
And let me repeat, Madam Speaker, the sum – in case people might have missed the scale of it.
Eighty thousand million, Madam Speaker – or in today’s parlance $80 billion. $50 billion dollars from hospitals. $30 billion dollars from schools. An attack on this scale is unprecedented.”
On Pensions:
“If the Prime Minister’s pension cuts had been in place for the last four years – today pensioners would be at least $1700 worse off. The Prime Minister’s breach of trust with pensioners isn’t just breaking a promise he made before the last election. He is breaking a promise Australia made with our fellow citizens forty and fifty years ago, at the start of their working life.”
On The Retirement Age And Superannuation:
“I have spent my adult life representing the people who do the real heavy lifting: tradespeople, labourers, cleaners, nurses and other Australians who make a living with skilled hands and strong backs. Many of them started work at 15 – don’t force them to work til they’re 70.”
“One of the first acts of this Government was to abolish Labor’s Low Income Super Contribution. This was a cowardly raid on the retirement savings of 3.6 million low-income earners. Two thirds of those hurt by this change were women – who had moved in and out of the workforce to start and raise a family.
“How can this Prime Minister think it’s OK to pay multi-millionaires $50,000 that they don’t need, and yet rob the retirement savings of over two million women who earn less than that in a whole year? Prime Minister – how can you not see how unfair this is?”
On Jobs And Youth Unemployment:
“For Australians under 30 who are looking for work, this Budget offers no hope. It offers despair. It offers poverty. It offers no plan for jobs.
“The changes to Newstart are perhaps the single most heartless measure in this brutal Budget. Sentencing young people to a potentially endless cycle of poverty when they should be getting a hand to find a job. Is just a blame-shifting, cost-shifting measure that will put the price of unemployment on to Australian families.
“Prime Minister, how are people under 30 looking for work supposed to survive for six months on nothing?”
Bring It On:
“We still believe in an Australia that includes everyone, that helps everyone, that lets everyone be their best, that leaves no-one behind. This is the Australia that the Prime Minister has forgotten. And it is the Australia that Labor will always fight for.
If you want an election — try us.
If you think we are too weak — bring it on.
But remember, it is not about you or I Prime Minister.
It is about the future of our nation and the wellbeing of our people.”