13 May 2014. The Abbott Government has delivered its first budget. It’s unfair and it targets those who can least afford it.
The Australian people have been hit with a Budget of broken promises, cruel cuts and unfair increases in the cost of living.
This is a Budget built on the wrong choices and wrong priorities for Australia’s future.
There are more than $80 billion in savage cuts to schools and hospitals. A visit to the GP will cost another $7 — no “modest contribution” if you’re earning little more than $16 an hour on the minimum wage, and Australians will now be expected to work until they’re 70.
That’s one thing if you sit behind a desk and quite another if you’re on your feet all day.
Even the supposed centrepiece of this Budget — the so-called Infrastructure Growth Package — is nothing more than an amateur con.
The small number of new road projects have been funded by cuts to public transport projects, cuts to local roads funding and a tax on every motorist.
The Treasurer talks about “budget repair”, but the government’s focus is on hitting the household budgets of those who can least afford it.