CONSERVATIVES have reacted with fury to Malcolm Turnbull’s Federal Budget, accusing him of turning his back on Coalition principles.
His tax-and-spend agenda has been dubbed “Labor-lite” by some commentators, with its $6 billion bank levy and Gonski 2.0 funding package coming in for particular criticism from the right-wing side of politics. It is also being widely seen as Mr Turnbull’s attempt to press the political reset button, killing off the ghosts of the Abbott-Hockey disaster budget of 2014.
Tony Abbott’s former chief-of-staff turned Sky News pundit Peta Credlin blasted the budget as not credible.
“It beggars belief when last year’s Budget hit our base with superannuation. It beggars belief that this year’s Budget would again hit the aspirational Coalition base on schools funding. It is a fight we don’t need. We are behind in the polls, when are we going to stop hitting our own?
“I don’t think it is credible for the Coalition side of politics to deliver a tax-and-spend Budget. This is a Labor tax-and-spend Budget, this is not who we are as a Coalition, this is not who we are as Liberals”
During an interview with 2GB radio host Alan Jones this morning, Mr Turnbull was confronted by Australia’s ballooning debt.
Jones pointed out Australia’s debt ceiling had been lifted to $600 billion and total debt was now rising by about $5.3 million per hour.
“People are saying to me ‘I never thought I would see the day when a Coalition government would increase the debt ceiling to $600 billion’,” Jones said.
“Out there they are worried sick ... how can you say we are living ... within our means? It’s worrying the tripe out of people.”
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But Mr Turnbull said the government was doing everything it could to bring the deficit down and the government was increasing taxes on banks and the Medicare Levy, but had not been able to get savings through the Senate.
“Labor backed in a lot of spending which we have sought to pare back — we have had a lot of success actually but not enough,” Mr Turnbull said.
“You cannot turn the federal government around on a dime.”
Jones also criticised the government’s backing of Gonski school funding which will see it tip $18.6 billion into the sector, saying the PM didn’t discuss the move with the party and it was “dudding Catholic schools”.
He also pointed out that Mr Turnbull even confronted Opposition Leader Bill Shorten over the issue of increased education spending, saying it didn’t guarantee results.
“You said that last year ... now Gonski has become an article of faith, some kind of religious relic,” Jones said. “What are you doing?”
Mr Turnbull tried to appeal to Jones’ experience as a former teacher saying “You know as well as I do, you are a former teacher, an old chalkie ... you know that the charisma of the teacher is the most important element”.
But Jones was having none of it, saying: “don’t soften me up, don’t try and soften me up”.
Former Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, who quit the party in protest in February to form the Australian Conservatives, said the Coalition had delivered “economy sucking vampire measures” that would leave every Australian family worse off.
“This is a great Budget for Australian Conservatives because it proves definitively, that the Coalition is now just another faction of the Labor Party,” he told Sky News.
“[They are] tackling businesses that make a profit, simply because they make a profit. There is no principle attached to it.”
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