This is a budget which demonstrates the Coalition Government’s complete disregard for Macarthur residents, and for South-West Sydney.

This budget was Scott Morrison’s last chance to reverse savage cuts to services, in a last-minute ploy to sway voters before the forthcoming federal election.

This budget is indicative of a Coalition Government that has given up on governing.

Had Scott Morrison taken the needs of Macarthur seriously, this budget would have delivered funding for the essential infrastructure projects that we need to keep pace with the rapid growth and development we are seeing in South West Sydney.

Labor has long been committed to providing $3 billion to fund the essential South-West link to the new Western Sydney Airport, yet once again the Coalition have failed to commit to this vital infrastructure project in their latest budget.

This budget also fails to reverse the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government’s savage cuts to our schools and our hospitals.

Nor does this budget reverse the Coalition’s cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships.

The budget also fails to properly fund pre-school; leaving 350, 000 pre-schoolers and their families in limbo, rather than providing permanent funding for early education.

Let us be clear about what this budget does – it promises the potential for a future surplus, a surplus which has been built on short-changing the most vulnerable in our society; those with a disability who are faced with an underspend in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The forecasted surplus, which is yet to be delivered, will be funded off a $1.6 billion underspend in the NDIS and a heroic wages forecast.

It is disappointing that in this budget, in the eleventh hour before the next general election, the Government demonstrates that it still has no plan to address rising power prices, and no plans to improve peoples’ wages.

We know that everything is going up, except for peoples’ wages.

In fact, under the Coalition Government, company profits have been growing at a rate five times faster than wages.

Families and businesses are struggling to pay their power bills and keep up with the cost of living; and yet members of the Coalition Government have voted 8 times to cut penalty rates.

We need to get the economy working for all Australians – the Government have proven in this budget that they are incapable of doing this.

There is nothing that the Government could have promised, in an attempt to sway voters in the next six weeks, which would make up for the inaction, division and savage cuts we have witnessed over the past six years.

Instead of planning for our future, and providing Australians with the relief, investment and services that they so desperately need and deserve, this budget has been used as a mere re-election platform.

The Government has demonstrated their priorities through this budget – they are more interested in sandbagging Coalition seats that are at risk this election, rather than providing the investment and infrastructure that we so desperately need in South-West Sydney.