INTRODUCTION
Delegates, fellow ALP members, friends.
I am honoured to have been asked to give this keynote address to your State conference, because this gathering comes at an important time for Labor.
It comes at an important time for the Tasmanian party.
And an important time for the party across the nation.
It comes after gut-wrenching election losses for Labor both here and in Canberra.
For ALP members, election defeats are not easy.
Labor is a party of government.
We seek government to improve the lives of the people we represent.
To make our communities better places to live.
To make our states and territories more prosperous and more resilient.
To provide our people with the opportunities they deserve.
And to make our nation stronger and fairer.
We are not a single issue party, sniping from the sidelines while avoiding responsibility for tough decisions and hard reforms.
We are not in the business of politics as a form of protest or an exercise in vanity.
We are in politics to win government so that we can benefit the many, not the few.
That is why the weeks and months that come after election losses are the hardest times for Labor Party members and supporters.
But they are also the most important times.
Because these are times when we need to choose between retiring hurt or running back out onto the field.
Between turning in on ourselves or re-engaging with the public.
Between mourning for the past or rebuilding for the future.
Friends, never forget Labors purpose.
Never forget the contribution Labor has made to the fabric of our nation.
Never forget that Australias economy is stronger, our society is fairer, and our people have greater opportunities thanks to State and Federal Labor Governments.
Just imagine an Australia with no Labor Party.
An Australia without Medicare, where income, not injury or illness, determines the level and quality of the healthcare people receive.
An Australia where the postcode a family lives in determines the quality of the education their children receive.
An Australia without affordable university education, without superannuation and without a National Disability Insurance Scheme.
We are the party that has delivered these reforms and more.
Labors task is never easy.
In the face of conservative government it may feel even harder.
But it is never more important.
For all we represent, and for all who believe, we have to stand up.
We have to take on the conservatives.
And we have to stand against the harsh, uncaring and unfair policies they want to impose.
Both here in Tasmania and federally in Canberra, the new Liberal Governments are showing their true colours:
Cutting the living standards of low and middle income earners;
Cutting services;
And cutting jobs.
They are:
Dividing our communities into haves and have-nots;
Entrenching unfairness and inequality;
And they have no plans for generating economic growth and jobs for the future.
Delegates, these regressive policies show why now is the time for Labor to start organising for future elections.
I know you will spend this conference debating the issues that affect Tasmania.
In Bryan Green youve got a Leader who will rebuild Labor and hold the Liberal Government to account.
Bryan is ably supported by Michelle OByrne, a parliamentary team, a party, and a movement that knows Tasmania is at its best when led by Labor.
As Labors Senate Leader, I know how passionate your federal representatives are about your state, and our country.
Here, and right across Australia, Labor is campaigning against the Liberal Partys twisted priorities.
I cant help but reflect on the fact that at the same time the Federal Attorney-General George Brandis is declaring he will protect the rights of bigots, the Tasmanian Liberals have tried to ram draconian anti-protest laws through your Parliament.
So, according to the Liberals, the bigots of Australia have rights, but community protestors in Tasmania have none.
Another example of twisted priorities is Tony Abbotts brutally unfair Budget.
Tony Abbotts Budget cuts will fall especially hard on Tasmanians.
Delegates
You know those people who designed the Commonwealth Games swimsuits and left Tasmania off the map?
Well that is how Tony Abbott is treating Tasmania his Budget takes an axe to Tasmanias schools, hospitals, pensioners and hard-working low and middle income families.
We all know that in our Australian federation, small states like Tasmania rely more on the Federal Government than the big States.
And that means Abbotts cuts will hit Tasmanians hard.
 
ABBOTTS BUDGET
The first Abbott Budget reveals a Government that has been in office for less than a year, yet is already light-years out of touch with low and middle income earners.
A Government which does not understand of cost of living pressures.
A Government which has an impoverished vision of the future of this country.
And a Government which wants to divide this nation including dividing the big States from the small States like Tasmania and my home state of South Australia.
The first Abbott Budget is a vicious attack on low and middle income earners in Australia.
It is a vicious attack on Medicare and our public hospital system.
It is a vicious attack on decent schools and affordable university education for our children.
And it is a vicious attack on basic Australian values of fairness, honesty and extending a helping hand to those in need.
It will increase the cost of living and at the same time it will take money out of peoples pockets.
The Abbott Governments Budget attacks Australians who work hard.
It attacks parents who want a better future for their kids.
It attacks young people studying to improve their skills and improve the nations future.
It attacks the elderly, age pensioners and self-funded retirees.
It attacks Indigenous Australians, widening not closing the gap.
And it attacks the weak and the vulnerable people who are sick and people with disabilities and their carers.
 
DETAILS OF CUTS
Let me take you through just some of the worst measures in this Budget.
Family Tax Benefits
Family Tax Benefit payments for low and middle income earners will be cut by $7.5 billion.
There will be less generous indexation and tighter eligibility for Family Tax Benefits.
That means more people will have their FTB payments reduced or miss out altogether and the value of the payments will fall over time compared to existing arrangements.
In Tasmania these cuts will affect more than 41,000 families receiving Family Tax Benefit A and more than 34,000 receiving Family Tax Benefit B.
 
Schoolkids Bonus
The Abbott Government wants to scrap Labors Schoolkids Bonus which provides payments to around 1.3 million low and middle income families with children at school.
These payments are worth $410 a year per primary school student and $820 a year per high school student.
The Government wants to scrap these payments from January next year, just when parents will need help with back to school costs.
In Tasmania, this will hit around 33,000 families with more than 57,000 school-aged children.
 
Petrol tax
The Budget increases fuel excise a new tax slug from the Prime Minister who promised no new taxes it will cost householders $2.2 billion over four years.
And Tony Abbotts petrol tax will go up every six months.
More than a decade ago John Howard froze petrol taxes because he wanted to give families cost of living relief.
Now Tony Abbott is increasing the cost of living by hiking petrol taxes.
 
GP and Medicines Tax
Families will pay a new GP Tax of $7 every time they go to the doctor and every time they have a medical test.
If the doctor gives them a prescription, they will pay a new tax of $5 every time they buy the medicine at the chemist.
This will turn every family doctor and every chemist into tax collectors for Tony Abbott.
It undermines one of the core principles of Medicare, universal access to healthcare.

Pensions cut
The Budget cuts indexation of pensions age pensions, disability pensions and veterans pensions.
This is a cruel slug on those who can least afford it.
People on the age pension have to make do on less than $20,000 a year.
If Mr Abbotts new indexation system had been in place for the last four years, a single age pensioner on the maximum pension rate today would be more than $60 worse off every fortnight, or $1,560 every year.
And people will have to work until they turn 70 before they can get the age pension.
The pension cuts will affect around 100,000 pensioners in Tasmania.
And remember, Tony Abbott has said these cuts dont even exist.
 
Health and hospital cuts
When Tony Abbott was Health Minister in the Howard Government he cut $1 billion from hospitals.
Now he is back as Prime Minister he is cutting $3 billion from hospitals over the next four years and this is just the start.
These cuts will mean fewer hospital beds, fewer nurses and longer elective surgery waiting lists.
Tasmanians understand how hard a society has to work to ensure it has a decent health system.
Imagine what Tasmanias hospitals will look like after they have been ravaged by Tony Abbott.
The Abbott Government is also eroding primary and preventive healthcare programs, which help people avoid illness and disease in the first place.
It is abolishing Medicare Locals, cutting funds for dental health, cutting funds for preventive health, and even cutting money for anti-smoking initiatives.
 
Schools cuts
The Budget cuts funding for schools by $6.5 billion over the next four years, breaking Tony Abbotts election promise to keep Labors school funding reforms.
The Gonski reforms ensure schools get government funding based on the needs of their students.
Abbotts cuts will mean lower quality education for our children.
 
The cuts get bigger and bigger
These cuts to schools and hospitals are only the entre to Tony Abbotts main course.
The Budget papers reveal that the cuts to hospitals and schools will keep getting bigger and bigger, mounting up to $80 billion over 10 years.
Those are massive cuts.
They are equivalent to shutting down the entire Tasmanian Government for more than a decade.
Cuts on this scale will fundamentally run down Australias public hospital system and they will mean our children do not get the education they need.
 
Young unemployed
One of the meanest measures in the Budget is its treatment of young people who lose their jobs.
The Budget cuts programs to help unemployed workers find jobs and then it punishes them if they cant find a job.
Jobseekers under the age of 30 will be cut off from Newstart unemployment benefits for six months.
How are young people who lose their jobs meant to buy food, and clothes and to keep a roof over their heads let alone travel to interviews and look for a new job if they have no income support from the Government for six months?
 
University cuts
If Australians ever needed proof that todays Liberals are for privilege and not opportunity, look at their plans for universities.
Tony Abbotts hikes to student fees will put the dream of a university education beyond the reach of tens of thousands of young people.
The Budget inflicts a double whammy on young people who want to go to university.
First it cuts the Governments contribution to student course fees by 20 per cent and deregulates fees, ensuring universities will charge more.
That means young people will have to go deeper into debt to go to university.
Then the Budget increases the interest rates the Government charges on student loans.
That means kids graduating from university will pay more and will take longer to clear their debts.
Education experts have said that this deregulated fee system will mean university degrees will cost up to three times as much leaving graduates with debts of $120,000 or more.
The impact will be harshest:
on young people from poor and low income backgrounds;
on graduates going into relatively low-paid jobs;
and on women, who delay paying off their student loans when they take time off work to have children.
All this will only deter young people from going to university at a time when there are already emerging shortages of graduates in areas like the health professions.
 
WHAT VISION FOR TASMANIA?
The blueprint for this Budget can be found in the Abbott Governments National Commission of Audit, which reported in March.
Bad as the Budget is, it is just the tip of the iceberg compared to the full Commission of Audit agenda.
And the Commission of Audit has Tasmania in its sights.
One of its harshest proposals would slash minimum wages in this State by more than a third.
The Commission of Audit recommends that Australias minimum wage be reduced to 44 per cent of average weekly earnings over the next decade.
In todays dollars that means cutting the minimum wage by $150 a week.
But then, over the following 10 years, the Commission wants minimum wages to be cut even further in states like Tasmania and South Australia.
Under its plan, Tasmania would end up with the lowest minimum wages in the country.
In todays dollars, the minimum wage in Tasmania would be cut from $640.90 to $416.15 a week thats a cut of $225 a week or 35 per cent.
This is an agenda for relegating Tasmania to the status of a second-class State in our federation.
 
BROKEN PROMISES
Budgets dont only reveal the values and priorities of a Government and its vision for the future.
They also reveal the character of those who lead governments.
This Budget reveals a Prime Minister who did not tell Australians the truth about his plans before the last election.
A Prime Minister breaking not just one promise but virtuallyeverypromise he made before the election.
Mr Abbott promisedno cuts to health and education now he is cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals.
Before the election, he promisedno new taxes now he is hiking petrol tax, imposing a new GP Tax, imposing a Medicine Tax and increasing the top marginal rate of income tax.
He promisedno change to pensions now he is cutting pensions.
He promisedno increases to university fees now he is increasing university fees.
Before the election, the Prime Minister promisedno cuts to the ABC or SBS this Budget will cut funding to the public broadcasters by $240 million, and regional services will be the first to go.
So there has been virtually no promise unbroken and no stone unturned in the Prime Ministers search for ways to hurt people.
LABOR WILL FIGHT
If this Budget is allowed to stand, it will have real and immediate impacts on millions of Australians.
It will strip thousands of dollars a year from the disposable incomes of people already struggling to make ends meet.
If this Budget is allowed to stand it will fatally undermine fairness and decency in our society and it will seriously harm our economy.
That is why Bill Shorten and Labor are fighting against this Budget.
Labor will fight for Medicare.
Labor will fight for low and middle income families.
Labor will fight for pensioners.
Labor believes in an Australia that extends a helping hand to those in hardship.
We believe in an Australia that treats people on low and middle incomes fairly.
We believe in an Australia which invests in our peoples healthcare and in our childrens education.
And we believe in an Australia that recognises that a strong economy and a fair society go hand in hand.
This is the Australia Labor will fight for.
 
CONCLUSION
So delegates, there is no time to be lost in rehearsing what might have been.
A great contest is under way in federal politics.
Its a contest over what sort of economy and what sort of society we want Australia to be in the future.
Its a contest whose outcome will directly affect the lives of ordinary people, here in Tasmania and around the country.
Its a contest we need to throw ourselves into with vigour, passion and energy.