Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Sunday 4 May 2014

Former Howard minister Peter Reith says Liberal supporters are angry as new poll shows support for government at 48%

The treasurer, Joe Hockey, says there is no such thing as free welfare. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

The Coalition government is defying criticism of its budget plans and says it will press on with some measures, including a controversial deficit levy and possible cuts to education, Medicare and unemployment payments.

As the Labor party attacked what it called broken promises by the prime minister, Tony Abbott, a former minister in John Howard’s Coalition government, Peter Reith, joined the ranks of internal Coalition critics who think next week’s budget might contain some cuts that go too far.

Reith said a proposed deficit levy on people earning more than $80,000 was a “whopping great big tax” which many Liberal supporters were angry about.

“People are not happy. I mean, they were angry and I’m talking about solid Liberal party people who have supported the party for years,” he told Sky’s Australian Agenda program on Sunday.

The education minister, Christopher Pyne, brushed aside the findings of a Galaxy poll showing that the government would lose an election if it were held today. He said Australians knew the government had to make tough decisions to improve the budget on 13 May.

“They know it won’t be easy and it is important that everyone shares in that burden of repairing the damage Labor did to the economy and to the budget,” Pyne said on ABC TV’s Insiders program on Sunday. The government has yet to confirm that a deficit levy will be included in the budget.

Almost three-quarters (72%) of respondents in the poll, published by News Corp Australia, said a rise in taxation would represent a broken promise by the government. Two-party preferred support for the Coalition has plunged by 5.5 percentage points since the election last September. Support for the Coalition now stands at 48% and that for Labor at 52%.

Support for the Coalition has slumped since the Commission of Audit’s report and policy hints by the government pointed to a possible increase in the age of eligibility for Newstart from 22 to 25; a $6 co-payment for a consultation with a general practitioner; a rise in the pension age to 70 and potential changes in the way university graduates repay their higher education contribution scheme debt.

The plan to raise the age of eligibility for Newstart to 25 means people younger than that will have to apply for youth allowance, which is about $100 less a fortnight.

The opposition’s deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, said young people were being “left to fend for themselves”.

“Tony Abbott came to government saying that there’d be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no change to the pension and no new taxes. He’s already broken every one of those promises,” she said.

Most of the speculation about the budget had revealed “nasty” proposals, she said.

Pyne has left open the door to increasing the percentage of university fees that students pay, which is now about 40%.

“I do think there is capacity for students to contribute more to their own education, especially knowing they are likely to have [an] unemployment rate below 1% and they will earn, over a lifetime, 75% more than a person without a university degree,” he said on Insiders.

In his last major speech before the budget next week, the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, continued to signal certain cuts would be in the budget, with his comments that there was no such thing as a “free visit to the doctor” or “free welfare”.

“In the private sector, no one questions the concept of user pays. You get what you pay for. And yet, over the years, we seem to have developed an attitude that this principle should not apply to government services,” he said in Victoria on Friday.

“Government services are somehow deemed to be magically free but, of course, they’re not free. They are paid for by the taxpayer. And so asking those who use government services to at least make some contribution to their delivery seems a logical and equitable step.

“Sooner or later, everyone that receives a benefit or a payment pays a price through the tax system,” he said.

The budget was going to replace a culture of entitlement with a culture of enterprise, Hockey said.

The opposition’s leader, Bill Shorten, said it was becoming apparent that the budget was full of “broken promises and twisted priorities” but he stopped short of saying Labor would block a deficit levy in the Senate, if it was attached to the budget.

“This is a bad idea. Mr Abbott has seven or eight days. He can just keep his promises, not break them; not increase taxes and look after ordinary Australians, rather than increasing their taxes and increasing their healthcare costs,” he said on Sunday.

Labor opposed the idea of a deficit levy and would oppose it in the Senate, if it was introduced as a separate bill to the budget, he said.

“Australians do not want to see themselves paying more taxes, cuts to the pension, and more expensive healthcare,” he said.

“Mr Abbott, Australians don’t want to pay your taxes. Australians do not want to pay increased taxes for Tony Abbott.”

Coalition deflects budget criticism and plunge in voter confidence | World news | theguardian.com