Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am certainly very pleased to rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2006-2007 and cognate bills. I am pleased to talk about the strong record of economic reform that the Howard government, particularly the Treasurer, Peter Costello, has delivered for all Australians. The government has delivered economic reform which means in summary that Australians are better off today after 10 years of the Howard government than they were under 13 years of the Australian Labor Party.

The budget delivered by the Treasurer only a couple of weeks ago is a budget that gets two thumbs up. It is a budget that has delivered in spades to the people of the Gold Coast, and particularly the people who live in my electorate of Moncrieff. I would like to take the House through a number of the key areas in which this government, due to the careful economic management of the Treasurer, Peter Costello, has been able to ensure that the beneficiaries first and foremost when it comes to careful economic management are Australian families, but in reality the beneficiaries are all Australians.

The budget in broad terms delivers an underlying cash surplus of $10.8 billion. This is the Howard government’s ninth budget surplus since its election in 1996. It is a strong budget position that has been maintained while delivering additional personal income tax cuts and ongoing significant reforms to the welfare system, all directly targeted at improving workforce participation. It is a budget that ensures that the prospects for the Australian economy remain strong, with economic growth forecast to be at 3¼ per cent in 2006-07 and the unemployment rate forecast to remain at around its current level, which represents generational lows for unemployment. It is a budget that will deliver a further $36.7 billion in tax cuts over the next four years. Total tax cuts worth nearly $37 billion were announced by the Treasurer, Peter Costello. These are tax cuts that mean Australians will keep more of their own money in their pockets. These are tax cuts that ensure that Australians get to enjoy their hard work and truly appreciate the reward for effort that flows from a lower tax burden.

In principle, the major areas of tax reform are these. There was a reduction in the 17 per cent tax rate to 15 per cent last year. In addition to that, this year there will be a reduction in the thresholds of 42c to 40c and 47c to 45c. These are tax cuts that will ensure that all Australians are keeping, as I said, more of their own money in their own pockets.

It is a budget that also, when it comes to the Gold Coast’s key industry of tourism, provides more money to ensure that the tourism industry continues to grow very strongly. Tourism for Australia generates some $75 billion in consumption and directly employs some 550,000 people in Australia—or approximately 5.6 per cent of the Australian workforce. It is a significant industry in regional Australia—especially in places such as the Gold Coast—where some 48c in every tourism dollar is being spent. What is more, for the Gold Coast, which has as its lifeblood the tourism industry, the amount is even higher. Furthermore, the percentage of people employed is even higher. In my electorate of Moncrieff, we have the second-highest concentration of workers in the tourism industry; it is second only to the electorate of Leichhardt, which is built around the city of Cairns. It is very important that the reforms made in this budget, that the economic framework it sets in place, that the tax cuts delivering more money into people’s pockets and that the investment in industries such as tourism will make a very meaningful and positive contribution to the lifestyles of Australians in Australia’s sixth largest and fastest growing city, the Gold Coast.

More than $320 million will be spent on the tourism industry in 2006-07 and 2007-08, including some $269 million for Tourism Australia and some $15.4 million to be invested under the Australian Tourism Development Program. That is a very worthwhile program and one that Gold Coast recipients have benefited from in recent years. It is a program that invests money into creating tourism infrastructure that will ensure that our city remains at the forefront when it comes to attracting both domestic tourists and foreign inbound tourists.

There is in addition some $3.9 million for the Approved Destination Status program to protect Chinese tourists over the next four years. This is crucial. On the Gold Coast I have had many reports in the past, unfortunately—and this is a problem that the Gold Coast shares with areas such as the Rocks in Sydney—of unscrupulous and rogue tourism operators engaging in particular business practices that short-sightedly are fleecing tourists and in fact ripping off some of them. This $3.9 million investment to help clamp down on those that would do the wrong thing and help to stop those kinds of business practices from occurring is very welcome—especially when I have heard reports of these kinds of practices on the Gold Coast. I am certainly committed—and I am very pleased that the Minister for Small Business and Tourism, Fran Bailey, is committed—to making sure that we stop these kinds of corrupt practices and to making sure that Chinese tourists visiting Australia enjoy the very best that Australia has to offer. This money will directly ensure that that is achieved.

Around $2 million is being invested to assist Indigenous tourism business development and there is a further $1.5 million for one icon of Australian tourism, the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. Of course, there is ongoing support for Tourism Events Australia to ensure that we attract more business tourism, which is among our highest-yielding tourism. I know from conversations that I have had with Pavan Bhatia, the CEO of Gold Coast Tourism, that business tourism increasingly is a focus for our RTO on the Gold Coast—that is, Gold Coast Tourism. Business tourism is a focus because of the new convention centre that we have and the fact that business tourism is such a high-yielding industry when it comes to a segment of tourists visiting Australia and visiting the Gold Coast. In addition to that, there is more money being made available to Tourism Australia to assist with the rollout of the new international tourism ad campaign. That campaign, according to the market research, is most likely to be very successful. We certainly wish to see that take place.

In a city like the Gold Coast tourism is crucial but so is small business. The Gold Coast on a per capita basis is Australia’s small business capital. It is the backbone of our city, as well as more generally being the backbone of the Australian economy. I am very pleased to be a strong advocate for the 1.2 million small businesses that exist in Australia. I come from a family with a small business background. My wife has her own small business. I remain absolutely committed to ensuring that small businesses in the city of the Gold Coast have the maximum chance and the maximum opportunities that a government can deliver to them. First and foremost, a strong economy provides resilience for small business and the opportunity to grow and to be inoculated against some of the turbulence that can occur when the economy is not doing well. In addition to that, it is important that government works in partnership with small business to reduce red tape and to provide opportunities for those small businesses to grow within Australia and to find opportunities to export.

It is interesting to note that approximately 40 per cent of small businesses are located in regional Australia. As I said, on a per capita basis, the Gold Coast is effectively the small business capital of Australia. In terms of government support to small business, I am pleased that the ASIC incorporation fee will be halved from $800 to $400 from 1 July this year, making sure it is cheaper to start up a small business. From 1 April next year, the threshold for reporting fringe benefits on employee payment summaries will be doubled from $1,000 to $2,000 and the exemption threshold for minor fringe benefits will be tripled from $100 to $300. All of this means less red tape and less in compliance costs for small business. From 2006-08 some $30 million will fund the Building Entrepreneurship in Small Business Program for skills development, mentoring, referral and support services for small business owners and managers and small business incubators. Again, that is a direct investment of funds that will ensure that small businesses are better positioned and have the work skills that they need and, in addition to that, the referral, support services and mentoring that they need to build a healthy, vibrant and strong small business.

In addition to that, from 2005 there was the three-year, $9 million BESB element to fund mentoring and succession planning initiatives that this government introduced. All in all, this means that small businesses will be better positioned when it comes to handing over the reins and when it comes to succession—another key factor.

The pinnacle of the reform that would be of direct assistance, not only to small businesses but also to those seeking to obtain employment, was the rollout of the Work Choices legislation. This legislation, although not part of the budget, is a fundamental and key reform to ensuring that small businesses have more incentive to employ people, which will help to maintain the generational lows in unemployment. At the same time—and this is the double benefit that flows from it—there will be more job opportunities, as a result of Work Choices, flowing to those who are unemployed and seeking to get a job.

As to the direct benefits for local Gold Coast residents, I am pleased that there will be, as a result of the announcements made in the budget, tens of thousands more child-care places being made available, a large proportion of which we can expect to be made available on the Gold Coast.

The single largest issue that all Gold Coast residents have been talking to me about over the past couple of weeks has been the changes made to superannuation, and the fact that Gold Coast residents will be in a much stronger position when it comes to being able to enjoy the benefits of their superannuation funds, those funds being tax free. Gold Coast residents can enjoy the benefit of their superannuation funds—be they a lump sum or an annuity—being tax free. That means that Gold Coast residents are saving money and are not having to pay the government taxes in the form of the benefit tax that previously applied.

In addition—and this, again, applies to small businesses—anyone who is self-employed will now be able to claim a full deduction for their super contributions, as well as being eligible for the government’s co-contribution. That superannuation reform is, I know, very widely and broadly supported throughout the small business community—especially among those who are self-employed.

When it comes to investment in infrastructure, I am pleased that, under the Roads to Recovery program, the Gold Coast City Council has had its funding doubled. It will be receiving some $7 million this year, which will go towards ensuring that the lifeblood of the Gold Coast—our road transport system—has more money available to it so that the Gold Coast can continue to invest in new road construction and maintenance, thereby making residents’ lives a little easier.

As a result of the $1.9 billion mental health package that was announced a month or two ago, there is more money being made available so that Gold Coast residents have access to the kinds of mental health care that they need. We are taking positive steps to reduce the toll that mental illness takes in our community. I have certainly had parents and members of the community come and talk to me about the high toll taken by mental illness. It is an issue that, unfortunately, many people do not want to talk about, but it is an issue that extracts a high toll. I am pleased that this government has had the foresight and the vision to introduce this $1.9 billion mental health package. I know, from speaking directly with the parents of a particular young man on the Gold Coast, who was burdened with bipolar disease and who was unfortunately shot dead by police, that this young man’s parents welcomed very warmly the announcement of this $1.9 billion mental health package, in the hope that, in the future, access to good mental health care would prevent this kind of occurrence from happening again.

In addition, in the budget there was a share of $10 million being made available to make Gold Coast beaches safer, with the establishment of a training program to assist surf lifesavers. In addition to that, a $50,000 payment is being made to the Gold Coast Drug Council to increase the infrastructure that they have at their disposal to help deal with the problem of drugs on the Gold Coast.

All in all, this budget has delivered in spades. More money is being invested in the Gold Coast by way of roads, education, physical health and mental health. This means that our rapidly growing city is better positioned to meet the challenges in coming years. First and foremost, the fact that this government has also been able to pay off $96 billion of Labor Party debt means that each and every year the Howard government enjoys an $8 billion advantage—money that we are now able to spend on the kinds of services that Gold Coasters demand and obtain as a result of careful and diligent economic management.

I would just like to take a moment at the end of my speech to contrast the Howard government’s economic record and investment with those of the state Labor government in Queensland. It is of concern to me that, at a time when the Howard government and Treasurer Peter Costello have been fiscally responsible and when this government has paid off $96 billion of public debt and is investing record amounts of money into road funding—as I said, some $7 million to Gold Coast City Council and an increase of 119 per cent under AusLink of road funding to the Queensland state government—that we on the Gold Coast are still burdened by complete under-investment by the Beattie state Labor government.

I am concerned that, at a time when this government is making hard but economically responsible decisions, the Beattie government continues to squander opportunities to invest in infrastructure and the kinds of projects that the Gold Coast city needs to go forward—roads, for example, and tourism. We have seen under this budget an increase in the amount of investment by the Howard government to ensure that the lifeblood industry on the Gold Coast—the tourism industry—has more money available to it. What has been the Queensland Labor government’s response to this investment? It has been to freeze their funding so that in real terms tourism funding for all of Queensland is in fact declining.

It is this shocking example of a state government that is vacating the field at a time when the federal government is more than meeting its responsibilities that has seen the collapse of our health system in Queensland, that has seen roads congested and clogged and that has seen tourism struggle because of a lack of investment by Tourism Queensland under the watch of the tourism minister at the state level. It is something that I believe all Gold Coasters are attuned to and awake to. I am sure that the trend of the three by-election losses that the Beattie government has seen in recent months will continue. I will certainly continue to champion the fact that the Gold Coast needs to see investments at a state government level—investments in schools, hospitals and, particularly, roads.

Some $329 million has been made available by the Beattie government to build the Nielson’s Road interchange, yet basically no work has been done because they would rather point the finger and play political games. That is something that residents understand and is a message I will continue to get out there. There is money available. There has been a 119 per cent increase in road funding to the Queensland Labor government by the federal government. Why doesn’t the Labor government just start building these roads? There is lots of talk by the Queensland government, but very little action.

With respect to health funding, we have seen record increases in the amount of support that this federal government is able to provide to the Queensland state Labor government. Despite this, I myself have personally received tens of stories from local residents highlighting problems that they have encountered when they have had to deal with the public health system. These are not problems that have been brought about by poor staff performance; they are not problems that have been brought about by bad doctors. They are problems that have been brought about by an underinvestment in the health system by the state Labor government.

In the few seconds remaining, I will simply summarise and say that I encourage people to look closely and critically at the differences in performance between state Labor governments—in particular the Beattie Labor government—and the federal government. We have paid off debt. We have run nine budget surpluses. We have more money available to invest in infrastructure and services. There is more assistance directly available to families, more child-care places, more money for roads, more money for tourism and more assistance to small business. All of this is in contrast to state Labor governments—in particular Peter Beattie’s Labor government, which is going in exactly the opposite direction.

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