Gabrielle Chan theguardian.com, Friday 16 May 2014
Greens will reject the Medicare co-payment, Newstart changes for young people and the deregulation of university fees
Christine Milne says the Coalition has a vindictive, hard-right, cruel and ideological agenda. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
The Greens will block the Medicare co-payment, Newstart changes for young people and the deregulation of university fees, all contained in a budget which “condemns us all to a dog-eat-dog existence in a rust-bucket economy”, Christine Milne said in her budget reply.
However, the Greens are reserving judgement on the reintroduction of indexation on petrol tax, confirming only that they would not support all the funds being used for roads and would amend the legislation to direct money back to public transport projects. Labor will vote against the petrol excise.
The Greens leader said Tony Abbott’s first budget, which contains big cuts to health, schools and universities, science and welfare benefits, was “in a category of its own”.
She told the Senate if voters were “frightened” about what Abbott would do before the Western Australian senate election rerun, “the real nature of the chameleon has been revealed”.
“Frankly, I have never witnessed such a brazen attempt by any prime minister to ruthlessly and so quickly impose such a vindictive, hard-right, cruel and ideological agenda on the Australian people,” she said.
“If you are privileged, the Liberals will protect that privilege; if you are already struggling, they will stamp you down and make your life harder.”
Milne said the Greens would block the $7 GP co-payment, the changes to Newstart, living and studying allowances for young people and students, and the deregulation of university fees.
“Why? Not only because it is wrong, but because there is no budget emergency and there is no burden to share,” Milne said.
“This [budget] is not about the future of the country or making life better for our children; it is about making life harder for people now, and our children, and condemns us all to a dog-eat-dog existence in a rust-bucket economy pitching on the rough seas of a world struggling with climate change, environmental degradation and inequality.”
Milne said the budget had failed to address global warming, water crises, volatile food markets, dislocation of populations, the gap between rich and poor and the transition in the mining industry.
She was critical of the “medieval attack” on science, with cuts to CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and environmental science programs.
“Compare this with the funding of $250m which has been directed to the school chaplaincy program, with the added restriction of requiring it to be delivered by a religious provider with no option for secular welfare providers,” she said.
She described the new medical research future fund as “a smoke-and-mirrors investment” which was being used to blackmail parliament into agreeing to Medicare co-payments.
“Research must be funded, but it must not come from the pockets of the sick,” she said.
“Instead of looking after your mates, let's admit that revenue is there to be had; you just choose the backs of the young, the sick and the vulnerable rather than Gina Rinehart and her ilk. We, the people, own the iron ore; it is time that we were paid a fair return for it.”
Milne said the budget emergency was phony and quoted economist Bruce Chapman, the architect of the original student loan program, the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, who said the budget changes for university students were unfair and would “unduly impact on poorer students”.
She said deregulation would lead to fee increases, pushing the cost of a nursing degree from $18,000 to $89,000 and that of an engineering degree from $26,000 to $106,800.
“The prime minister is completely out of touch with people trying to live on payments like Newstart or Youth Allowance. What does the prime minister think people will eat?
“Our country deserves better than a cruel budget written for big business, big miners, big polluters and big banks, who are all completely let off the hook.”
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