Labor’s second Budget is a betrayal of people who were promised that no one would be left behind.
This Budget was an opportunity to lift people out of poverty and Labor didn’t take it.
Budgets are about choices. During a worsening cost of living crisis, the government is choosing to continue with Stage 3 Tax Cuts, nuclear submarines, and handouts for wealthy property investors and fossil fuel corporations while leaving people below the poverty line, cutting the NDIS and increasing student debt by $6 billion dollars over the next two years.
A fundamental job of government is to make sure people have the basics they need to live life with dignity.
With rents soaring and everyday costs rising, tonight Labor’s Budget has just a $1.12 a day increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance and $2.85 a day extra for income support recipients. Labor is leaving people in poverty.
We need a freeze on rent increases now, we need to wipe student debt and to lift income support above the poverty line. Watch our full take on tonight’s Budget here.
Labor has the power to lift people out of poverty, they’ve just chosen not to use it.
Labor told us tonight they had to make ‘hard choices’ to balance the budget. But they’re just pushing the hard choices onto people doing it tough. Forcing millions of people to choose between paying the rent, having food in the fridge or accessing medical treatment.
At the last election, voters wanted a government that would tackle the inequality crisis. They’re still waiting.
Labor’s surplus of $4.2 billion dollars will be no comfort for those who are trying to keep their head above water. You can’t pay rent with a surplus. Every dollar of surplus is a dollar not spent lifting people out of poverty.
Meanwhile, gas corporations making obscene profits while cooking the planet pay next to nothing. Labor is raising more from lifting student debt than they are from their changes to the gas tax.
There’s simply no excuse not to deliver the housing, health and income support people are crying out for – especially when they’re spending four times more on stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy than they are on cost of living relief.
This parliament was elected to take action on climate and the cost of living. If Labor worked together with the Greens we could immediately lift people out of poverty, freeze rent increases and wipe student debt.
Labor may have given up on ‘no one left behind’, but we haven’t.
We will fight to make sure this budget does what every government should: give people what they need to live with dignity.