27 May 2014

Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor has called on residents of Hume to wise up to the scare campaigns about the Federal Budget.

“The Labor Party is wrong about Budget funding on healthcare and wrong about Budget funding for schools. It’s misleading the elderly about changes to the aged pension and it’s in denial about the state of the national debt underpinning the Budget. As we head into several weeks of debate in parliament over the Federal Budget, residents of Hume should know the truth,” Mr Taylor said.

“This Budget does not cut funding for health. Annual federal assistance to the states for public hospitals will increase by more than 9% every year for the next three years and by more than 6% in the 4th year.  Overall annual health spending will increase by more than $10 billion over the next four years.

“Federal funding for our schools will continue to increase each and every year. Students and schools will benefit from a record funding investment of $64.5 billion over the next four years. This is over $1.2 billion more than Labor would have spent over the next four years.

“The aged pension will not change during this term of parliament. It is not being cut. In fact, the amount of the pension will continue to increase twice a year as it always has. In March this year, the base rate of the pension increased $14.30 a fortnight for single pensioners, and $10.80 a fortnight for each member of a couple. The amount of the pension will increase again in September.

“Labor is also misleading the public about the debt underpinning this Budget. Labor delivered $191 billion in record budget deficits over five budgets. We are currently paying $1 billion a month just to service the interest on Labor's government debt. By 2017-18 there would still be a deficit of around $30 billion under Labor. Under the Coalition's Economic Action Strategy, that will be brought back to just $3 billion.

“The Coalition Government is here to fix Labor’s mess; that is why we were voted in to Government. That is what we are doing.”