Page 1614 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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The first federal budget from Prime Minister Abbott was full of lies and broken promises. Not only did it impose new fees and cuts, particularly on those who can least afford them, but it certainly went a lot further than stated election commitments in relation to public service positions and the way in which those public service positions would be shed. We were assured repeatedly by federal Liberals, reinforced by those opposite, about 12,000 through natural attrition. That is certainly not how it is panning out. People would rightly be upset by that approach.
I guess, reflecting on this, there will always be rusted-on conservative voters to whom a Liberal MP could say that the moon is made of cheese, and they would agree. Labor has its own similar supporters. There is no doubt about that. There are rusted-on people on both sides of politics. But there are, I think—and those opposite know this—a number of people who probably voted Liberal for the first time in their lives in the last election, on the basis that they would be delivered a government that was effectively endorsing the social policy agenda of the previous Labor government.
We were told, “No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to the pension, no increases to the GST, no cuts to the ABC or SBS.” We were told that over and over again. So the impression that was created was that you could change the government but you would not be changing the country. I think we have all had a pretty rude awakening after the budget that yes, this is more than just a budget repair job; this is a government that is intent on changing the nature of the federation and certainly changing the nature of Australian society beyond just the way we manage our budgets.
This is ideological. It is the bucket list of the young Liberal. “It is almost everything I could possibly want to do before I die.” And that is what we are seeing in the attitude and approach. It is the cigar smoking, the dancing around the office, celebrating what is a series of pretty harsh measures across a number of areas of public policy. It is an approach that basically passes the buck on repairing the nation’s finances to the states and territories and to local government—and I will talk a little about local government—and also to households. It is almost everyone else’s responsibility. It is everyone else’s responsibility.
Premiers Newman, Baird, Napthine, even Will Hodgman and Colin Barnett over in the west, and the Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles joined Labor Premier Jay Weatherill and Chief Minister Gallagher, in expressing shock and outrage, given there was a COAG meeting, what, two weeks ago, and there was no mention of this dramatic cost shift, the withdrawal of that range of national partnerships that Dr Bourke listed relating to concessions for pensioners, the national partnership agreement on preventative health, training partnerships for single and teenage parents, partnerships on improving public hospital services, on adult public dental services, the financial assistance grants to local government.
Here in the ACT, with our hybrid-nature government, we are in receipt of financial assistance grants. Those have been frozen—a direct cut at the heart of municipal service provision in the territory and in the surrounding region. To be frank, we are probably in a better position than the surrounding local councils to cope with that freeze. Nonetheless, it still has to have an impact upon municipal service delivery, and
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