Tuesday night’s budget was Malcolm Turnbull’s last chance to fix five years of unfairness – and he failed.

This unfair budget gives big business and the banks an $80 billion tax handout, and makes Australians pay for it with savage cuts.

• It fails the fairness test on pensioners – Turnbull is cutting the energy supplement, costing pensioners $14 a fortnight, and forcing people to keep working until they are 70
• It fails the fairness test on education – Turnbull is still cutting $17 billion from schools, and has $270 million in new cuts to TAFE
• It fails the fairness test on hospitals – Turnbull’s cuts mean Australians will be stuck on hospital waiting lists for longer
• It fails the fairness test on Medicare – Turnbull’s freeze on the rebate for specialists means Australians will pay even more when they visit the doctor

Any budget that gives a handout to big business but hurts pensioners is a bad budget.

This budget also fails the fiscal test. Even with $40 billion in additional tax revenue:

• Net debt for this coming year is double what it was when the Liberals came to office; and
• Gross debt, which crashed through half a trillion dollars on their watch for the first time in history, will remain well above half-a-trillion dollars every year for the next decade.

Clearly the Government has committed billions of dollars on the back of a temporary global economic upswing – we have seen how that plays out before.

Labor will back the personal income tax measures that begin on July 1 this year, and we’ll have more to say in the future about how else we’ll help working people.

We know middle class and working class people are struggling with the cost of living – this is overdue relief, but it doesn’t make up for Turnbull’s cost of living increases and cuts to penalty rates. 

Most of this package is off in the never never – it’s a hoax for Mr Turnbull to tell people they have to vote for him at least two more times before they see tax relief in 2024.

Funding just 14,000 new in-home aged care packages over four years is another hoax, with funding being cut from residential aged care to pay for it. There are still 100,000 people on Turnbull’s waiting list for in-home care. It’s a particularly cruel hoax after promising older Australians they would address the crisis.

After five years of the Liberals – health care costs more, housing costs more, education costs more and energy costs more.

Every budget is about choices. Yet again, Turnbull has chosen the top end of town.

A Shorten Labor Government will make different choices.

We will improve our schools, fix our hospitals and save Medicare.

We will make university more accessible, guarantee the future of TAFE and put local jobs first.

We will deliver genuine tax relief for working Australians, protect pensioners and improve the budget bottom line.

A Shorten Labor Government will deliver a fair go for Australia.