Broken Promises

Tony Abbott has repeatedly stated that he will keep his promises.
However, as Tony Abbott has already found, making promises is much easier to do
when you are in Opposition and there's every chance you won't need to keep them.
Let the count start:
1. Tony Abbott's promise to the Yolngu people to spend his first week as Prime
Minister on their country.
2. Tony Abbott's Gonski/Better Schools funding promise.
3. Tony Abbott's promise to be "a government of no surprises and no excuses".
4. Tony Abbott's promise to be "a government that says what it means, and means
what it says".
5. Tony Abbott's "buy the boats" policy.
6. Tony Abbott and the Liberal's promise of "Download speeds of between 25 and
100 megabits per second by the end of 2016". They now say that only around 43%
will have speeds of 25 megabits per second by 2016.
7. In the lead up to the 2013 Federal Election, Greg Hunt committed the Coalition
Government to sending a ship to monitor Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean.
In October 2013, Greg Hunt claimed there was "no change" in their position to send
a vessel to monitor whaling. Yet, in December 2013, Greg Hunt announced they
would instead send a customs-chartered Airbus A319 aircraft. Greg Hunt, Tony
Abbott and the Liberal Party had criticised the then Labor Government for not
sending a vessel to monitor the Japanese whaling activities.
8. No changes to pensions.
9. No cuts to the ABC or SBS.
10. No new taxes.
11. No cuts to health.
12. No cuts to education.
13. Tony Abbott's promise that "The only party that will raise taxes after the election
is the Labor Party."
14. Tony Abbott's promise "to get cost of living pressures down".

15. Tony Abbott's promise that "We are not shutting any Medicare locals" during the
August 28, 2013 debate with Kevin Rudd.
16. Tony Abbott's promise that "We won't do anything that is contrary to our
mandate."
17. Tony Abbott's promise that we will get an "honest" Government.
18. Paid Parental Leave has been capped from his original promise of up to $75,000.
19. Tony Abbott's promise to "modestly slim down" the public service by "12,000
through natural attrition". 16,500 jobs have been announced as going.
20. Tony Abbott claimed that the Mining Tax would be gone by July 1, 2014.
21. Tony Abbott's promise that the public service would be reduced by "natural
attrition" and "that we are not talking about forced redundancies". Since the 2013
Federal Election, public servants have been forced to take redundancies.
22. Tony Abbott's promise ensuring all Commonwealth-funded projects worth more
than $100 million to undergo a cost-benefit analysis by Infrastructure Australia.
23. In the lead up to the 2013 Federal Election, Greg Hunt, Tony Abbott and the
Liberals not only promised to maintain the existing funding to Landcare, but to give
them access to a greater pool of funding. After the election, the Landcare budget
was cut by $483.8 million.
24. In April 2013, Tony Abbott made a promise to repeal Section 18C of the Racial
Discrimination Act. On August 5, 2014, Tony Abbott abandoned any changes to
Section 18C. On August 6, 2014, Tony Abbott went further and said that the changes
are "off the table".
25. Despite claiming that Paid Parental Leave was his "signature" policy, Tony
Abbott scrapped it completely in February 2015.
26. Despite promising on numerous occasions that the GST wouldn't change, Tony
Abbott and Joe Hockey have expanded the GST to include digital purchases from
overseas in a tax grab that has become known as the 'Netflix tax'.

PLEASE NOTE:
I have been quite conservative with this list of "broken promises".
For example, the "No cuts to health" broken promise.
I have counted this as only one broken promise, however, it could be argued that
each and every single cut to health could - and perhaps should - be counted
individually.

Also, there are other broken promises which I am currently investigating or holding
off on including.
These include the promise to keep The Australian Renewable Energy Agency
(ARENA) (which Tony Abbott and the Coalition want to scrap), as well as the promise
to "have one million more solar roofs across Australia and at least 25 solar towns".
It's also fair to say that not all of these broken promises listed above are bad,
however, they are still broken promises.
http://www.phonytonyabbott.com/content/broken-promises