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May 17th, 2013 
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott delivers his Budget reply. Picture: Ray Strange
Source: Herald Sun
TONY Abbott says he can’t guarantee that everyone will be better off under an incoming Coalition government but that power prices will decline if he is made prime minister.
The Opposition Leader underwent a media blitz this morning following his detail-packed budget reply speech last night.
Mr Abbott said if elected in September the carbon tax would be abolished which could see electricity prices fall by as much as 10 per cent.
But he admitted not every Australian would be better off under his government
Budget 2013: What it means to you
“I can’t give a guarantee and won’t give a guarantee that everyone will be better off as a result of the totality of changes that the Coalition will make going into the next election,” Mr Abbott told Sky News when asked about those people on the Newstart and single parenting payments.
“But certainly people’s ordinary, weekly or fortnightly budgets will be helped by the changes that we announced last night.
“They keep the tax cuts, they keep the fortnightly pension and benefit increases but they don’t have the carbon tax which is adding 10 per cent to power bills and 9 per cent to gas bills.”
Mr Abbott also said a commission of audit would not scrutinise key Coalition policies like the paid parental leave scheme or direct action plan.
“The audit is not to second guess Coalition policy,” he said.
“This is looking at the way government runs, it’s looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of the administration.”
He said a tax white paper was also unlikely to look at the GST reform, unless the states and public specifically wanted it to do so.
“We certainly don’t want to squib this process in the way that the government did with the Henry review but we have no plans to change the GST. It’s really not the commonwealth’s to change anyway because the GST is a state and territory tax,” Mr Abbott said.
“The GST couldn’t be looked at unless the Labor states wanted it.”
Finance Minister Penny Wong said the Coalition’s commission of audit would hurt Australians.
“The commission of audit is nothing more than a commission of cuts, it will hit working Australians,” she told ABC radio.
Superannuation Minister Bill Shorten said Mr Abbott, like Australia’s school children in recent days, had to sit his own NAPLAN test and came up with sub-standard answers.
He said the most frustrating thing was his promise to delay by two years the phased increase in the superannuation guarantee charge from nine per cent to 12 per cent by 2021, saving $1.1 billion a year.
“If you are a 30-year-old earning average fulltime wages, man or woman, the delay in superannuation, if in fact they ever increase it at all, is going to cost you $20,000 by the time you retire,” he told ABC News 24.
“That means a whole lot of Australians will not have as much money as they would otherwise have in retirement.”
Mr Abbott’s former frontbench colleague Alexander Downer praised his budget reply speech saying it was a “cautious but very responsible approach”.
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