Tony talks to Insiders last year

I was Googling to find a photo of Abbott on Insiders yesterday, and turned up the transcript from his pre election interview with Barrie Cassidy last year.  Some notable extracts (my bold):

BARRIE CASSIDY: Let's talk about some of the policies. We will start with the cuts to come. How severe will they be?

TONY ABBOTT: There will be no surprises and no excuses from a Coalition government Barrie. We've already put out a lot of the savings that we think are necessary. Joe Hockey outlined $31 billion worth of savings this week. There will be some additional savings to be announced later this week…

BARRIE CASSIDY: That is what I as asking about. How severe will they be?

TONY ABBOTT: Nothing like Labor's scare campaign. All eminently defensible because, let's face it Barrie, our first priority here is to build a stronger economy. And that means reinvesting taxpayers' dollars in things that will actually strengthen our economy rather than just build bureaucracies.

BARRIE CASSIDY: But you now know the size of these cuts, how significant, how big?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, there will be some further, relatively modest savings announced later in the week. But I don't think anyone is going to think at the end of this week 'my God there is this massive fiscal squeeze coming.' If anything, what they will think is that there has been a massive scare campaign, a massive campaign of exaggerations and even lies from the Labor Party.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well put it this way, will the cuts impact on ordinary Australians?

TONY ABBOTT: Inevitably there will be some changes that people won't like, for instance the …

BARRIE CASSIDY: Ordinary Australians will feel it?

TONY ABBOTT: Ending the so-called School Kids Bonus.

BARRIE CASSIDY: We know about that one.

TONY ABBOTT: I don't believe the additional savings to be announced later in this week, will impact on ordinary Australians. And I want to give people this absolute assurance, no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, and no changes to the GST (Goods and Services Tax).

OK, so no surprises, other than an abrupt plan to deregulate university fees and make many of them much more expensive, require repayments of HECS faster, introduce co-payment for Medicare, increase the cost of medicines, lengthen age pension eligibility by 3 years, treat anyone under 30 punitively if they can't get a job, cut funding to the States on health both immediately and in the future, etcetera, etcetera...