Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (15:36): The people of Australia look to their federal government for a vision, and they look for that government to be competent in delivering that vision. When they look at this government, they see a government whose vision is for every Australian to have to pay to go to the doctor; whose vision is to rip up the universality of health care; to wreck Medicare, that great social compact; to give Australia's pensioners, who have worked hard all their lives, an unfair system of indexation; to take $80 billion out of the health and education systems of Australia; to deliberately create an underclass of Australia's young people by denying them access to Newstart; and to rip away family tax benefits. That is the sum extent of the vision that this government intends to give the nation. And, when it comes to competence, it is even incompetent in delivering that cheap and nasty vision for the nation. This is a government which likes to talk about being calm and methodical. We hear it all the time: how calm and methodical this government is. The last 24 hours have been about as calm and methodical as schoolies week on the Gold Coast. We have had chaos in policy implementation. We had the Prime Minister's office out last night, fanned out across the building, talking to journalists, saying: 'You can write with great authority that the GP tax is dead. Tony Abbott's killed it.' You can just imagine them over there in the Prime Minister's office saying: 'We've got an election on Saturday. You know what we do about election time? We mislead people about our intentions. That's what we do at election time in the Liberal and National parties. Let's brief out that we're killing the GP tax, authorised by the Prime Minister's office, talking to journalists right across the building.' There was only one little problem. Nobody told the Treasurer, the Minister for Finance, the Leader of the Government in the Senate or the Minister for Health, apparently. 'Calm and methodical'—this bunch, this cabinet, led by the Prime Minister, marauding about, attacking the social compact of Australia, attacking those things which have been part of our social compact for 40 years; a 40-year community standard in Medicare! This gang of marauders cannot even shoot straight. They cannot even shoot straight in their attack on Australia's social compact. If you give us a cheap and nasty vision, at least be competent as you implement it. At least provide a bit of consistency and a bit of logic as you implement it. But the government cannot even do that. They cannot even trash Medicare competently. They cannot even abolish universal health care with the degree of competence that the Australian people look for. Mr Giles: They have been trying for 40 years now. Mr BOWEN: For 40 years they have been trying. You would think they would get it right. This is a community standard which even John Howard did not attempt to attack, which Gough Whitlam implemented against huge opposition from the predecessors of the members opposite, which Bob Hawke and Paul Keating implemented against opposition from John Howard and the Liberal and National parties. But even John Howard, who once declared that he would destroy Medicare, came to accept that community standard. Even he said: 'I accept that I've lost the debate. Medicare is here to stay. Universal health care is here to stay.' Medicare is important to the nation that Australia has become and aspires to be, but this Prime Minister just does not get it. He says: 'No, I'm going to out-conservative John Howard. I'm going to rip up the social compact that is Medicare.' But he cannot even do it competently. And when he backtracks, when he tries to admit defeat, it lasts less than 24 hours, and you have the Treasurer out there countermanding the Prime Minister and saying, 'No, the Prime Minister's wrong.' This Treasurer stood at that dispatch box and brought down that unfair budget when he considered himself a substantial figure, and he was seen as the substantial figure of the government, the person providing the government's narrative backbone—remember that? Actually, it was not that long ago. It was not that long ago when he was the government's most substantial figure. Now the Treasurer is in danger in a slight breeze! That is how substantial he is these days. You have got to hope they have got him tethered down. Senior Liberals are speculating that he might not make the election as Treasurer because of his incompetence, and he says: 'No, we're sticking by it. We've got an alternative vision for the nation.' He says, 'Just because you lose in the Senate, you don't let a little principle like that get in your way; you keep going.' They have an alternative vision for the nation, and it is a cheap and nasty one. It involves making people pay to go to the doctor. It involves ripping off pensioners. It involves cutting $80 billion out of health and education. It involves ripping away Newstart benefits from young people. They will not accept it in the Senate. When the parliament and the people say no, they say, 'No, we're going to keep going.' That is what they say. This is what they say to the Australian people: 'We might not be able to implement it now.' But we know what they want in their hearts to do. They are making it very clear. If they ever have the numbers in the other place as well as in this, we know what they want to do. We know what they want to implement, and it is a very poor vision for Australia. (Time expired)