The broken promises and twisted priorities in Tony Abbott’s budget will devastate our community and make it much harder for locals to make ends meet. 

The cruel and unnecessary cuts to schools and hospitals, pensions and payments, and tax hikes on petrol will stretch household budgets to breaking point.

Tony Abbott’s new GP tax of $7 per visit means local people will now only get the care they can afford, rather than the care they need at critical times.

Pensions and payments are down, taxes and charges are up, hospitals and schools have been cut – it’s that simple.

This attack on the sick, the frail, the aged, the young, the poor and disabled follows Mr Abbott’s election-eve promise not to cut health or education or change pensions.

This Budget is chock-full of broken promises which make up a direct assault on the capacity for local people to pay for the essentials of life and provide for loved ones.

The people of our area need a federal government that is part of the cost of living solution but instead they have an Abbott Government making things much worse.

This Budget will make our community and our country poorer, sicker and less fair.

My Labor colleagues and I will stand up for local people and resist this cruel, badly-motivated and unnecessary attack on Rankin families and pensioners

First published in The Logan Reporter on 14 May 2014.