Labor candidate for Hume Aoife Champion has called the Coalition budget a "desperate plea bargain with the Australian People."
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In a statement, Ms Champion was critical of the Liberal-National budget handed down last Tuesday, labelling it "all icing, no cake."
"It is just another Liberal budget giving bigger tax cuts to the rich and wealthy, while leaving low to middle-income earners in the lurch," Ms Champion said.
"It's not about the people of Australia, it's about political survival.
"The budget bedazzles voters with shiny, though tiny, rewards, while pushing wage growth, climate action and electricity prices out the back door, to be dealt with by our kids when they inherit the Earth. Nothing about this style of governance is responsible."
She said the Liberal-National budget:
- Fails to reverse cuts to schools and hospitals.
- Fails to reverse cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships - in the past six years, the Liberals have cut $3 billion from TAFE and skills, and cut 150,000 apprenticeship places.
- Promises a surplus that is subsidised by short-changing people with disability through a massive underspend in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
In contrast, the budget response by Labor last Thursday night detailed how they will invest an extra $2.3 billion into a Medicare Cancer Plan, including investing $600 million towards eliminating all out-of-pocket costs for life-saving scans, and provide 3 million free consultations with oncologists and surgeons for cancer patients.
Ms Champion said she would push for an MRI machine for Goulburn, which the city lacks.
"That is definitely something that this funding could take into consideration," Ms Champion said.
"The discrepancies between those kinds of services between places is insane, so the bottom line is there is money and it is for these issues."
She said Labor would give 10 million working Australians the same or bigger tax cuts than they'll get under the Liberals, including extending tax cuts to low-income earners, with people on $25,000 per year receiving a $350 offset.
"There is a plan to deliver real action on climate change, make Australia a global leader in clean technology and commit Australia to 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030," Ms Champion said.
Other initiatives in Labor's response budget include:
- Delivering a $1 billion plan for TAFE which will restore the 150,000 places lost and invest $200 million to rebuild and upgrade TAFE campuses across the country
- Uncap university places
- Deliver universal access to preschool and kindergarten for 3 and 4-year-olds
- Re-invigorate wage growth and restore penalty rates within 100 days and
- Fully restore funding to the ABC.
She said Labor's Budget reply by Bill Shorten shows the Liberals how to deliver a budget that gives a fair go to all Australians.
"This election, the difference is clear - Labor will fix our hospitals and schools and ease the pressure on family budgets by giving bigger, better and fairer tax breaks to the workers, not handouts to the big banks."
"We'll deliver budget repair that's fair, by making multinationals pay their share and closing tax loopholes."
"This election, voters will have the opportunity to vote on the budget they prefer. I encourage voters to consider which Australia they want to live in - whether the Liberal's land of 'we haven't managed the budget so we can't afford it, dear', or Labor territory where tax dodgers are finally made to fund climate change, drought solutions, Medicare cancer costs, and living wages for the hard working."
"The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has always had the wrong priorities, and they simply cannot be trusted now."
Meanwhile, Greens Campaign coordinator for Hume Iain Fyfe told the Goulburn Post that Dr Saan Ecker has officially withdrawn as a candidate for Hume due to work and study commitments.
He said Greens groups affiliated with Hume have begun the process of finding a new candidate and would advise when a candidate is chosen.