Rudd government Budget betrays Australian women
13-May-2009
A close look at the Budget bottom line reveals the extent of the Rudd Government’s betrayal of Australian women, Shadow Minister for Women Sophie Mirabella said today.
“Australian women have a personal understanding of how to balance a budget – it’s a challenge they face every day. They will be deeply concerned that the Government’s reckless spending has been put on the credit card, because they know that’s simply not sustainable. The huge and unprecedented burden of debt left to our children in this Budget is disgraceful.”
“But just as disappointing is the betrayal of Australian women found in the Budget bottom line,” Mrs Mirabella said.
“Disgracefully, the Budget documents reveal no allocation of new funds for the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children. Instead, they show that the funding announced on the 29th April to implement this Plan will actually come from funding already allocated under the Women’s Safety Agenda put in place by the Coalition Government.”
“This is calculated trickery. Labor made a big fanfare about the National Plan and now it has been revealed that they are not allocating any new funds at all to address the serious issue of violence against women.”
Mrs Mirabella said that even the much-touted Paid Parental Leave Scheme was an exercise in “smoke and mirrors” for Labor.
“Paid Parental Leave is of course a concept the Coalition supports – but when you look closely at the figures you see that the Government is giving with one hand and taking back even more with the other.”
Mrs Mirabella said the delay in introducing the Paid Parental leave Scheme until after the next election in 2011 left a cloud of uncertainty over the future of the scheme.
“This Budget reveals how Labor reneged on their highly-publicised promise before the last election to build 260 new Childcare Centres to end the “dreaded double drop off” – not one Centre is operational and they’ve now indefinitely put on hold plans for 222 of these promised Centres.”
“Why would Paid Parental leave be any different? In fact the PM ensured he has a perfect “out” clause in his media release on the Paid parental Leave Scheme when he declared: “The scheme will come into effect when the economy is expected to be recovering and the economic outlook improved.”
“The Budget papers show that our nation will plunge deeper into debt and that debt as a percentage of GDP will peak in about 2013. Labor’s reckless spending means the economy will not be greatly improved by 2011 – in fact, we will be paying billions extra each year in interest payments alone to service Labor’s debt.”
“I wonder what new “smoke and mirrors” tricks the Rudd Government will come up with by then to further disappoint the women of Australia?” Mrs Mirabella concluded.