Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I want to concentrate on several key issues in the budget reply. I will not go into the details of my objections to the massive tax cuts in this budget and the complete distortion of priorities away from much-needed school, hospital and transport infrastructure in favour of cash in the pocket for those in least need, but I make a few comments. Notwithstanding the minister’s remarks a moment ago on the welcome initiatives around some road funding, local government continue to receive but a fraction of their needs to replace ageing transport infrastructure. It is a state problem as well as a federal problem, but it is after all a problem of national significance. The doubling of Roads to Recovery funding for the next year is but an extra $300 million. That is about enough to reform and reseal 300 kilometres of road, so let us get the whole process of infrastructure refurbishment into some sort of perspective.

Any tax cuts for middle- and lower-income earners have been swallowed up by mortgage, rent and petrol increases within a few weeks. The polls show that the budget has not captured any widespread support. In fact, as I have said for a decade or more, and many others as well, most Australians want better services rather than money in their pockets that will disappear with cost of living increases. They want better hospitals, fairer health care coverage and more child-care premises which are community funded, not provided by a greedy private sector prepared to cut corners—not all the private sector do, I must say, but there are enough signs in the sector to show that there is an exploitation of what should, after all, be a community delivered service. In so many circumstances, we have seen the benefit of private shareholders. I have grave concerns about the possibility for exploitation of child care and aged care for the benefit of shareholders. The shareholders, after all, should be the aged and the children of this nation.

The constituents I talk to want all children to have equal opportunity and access to the best educational opportunities. An index of educational facilities and infrastructure is the sort of thing we need—a sort of barcode you could run against all schools, state and independent, and when the red light flashes it would suggest that there is something vital and crucial in the infrastructure of that school that is not there, that is outstanding, that needs attention. Until and unless those shortfalls are met, there should not be another dollar spent on the educational opportunities of others in our community. The take-up of the Investing in Our Schools grants scheme is symptomatic of the need out there in the public school system. The 2008 program has been brought forward to this year, such has been the demand for this very welcome and very necessary program. But like Roads to Recovery it suggests that we are only scratching the surface. Who should take ultimate responsibility for this? Of course the states have ultimate responsibility for the state education process, but we cannot stand by and play some sort of a blame game. Surely we should have an agreement at state and federal level on the absolute basic requirements of every school in the system—state or independent—and provide accordingly.

There are plenty of pluses in this budget. The mental health initiative is an outstanding one. I certainly wait to see the outcomes of increased residential care rather than the jailing option we see all too often for those who should be treated rather than criminalised, acknowledging as we must the violence involved in their behaviour. So often in recent years I have come across cases where the only option is the jail option, with all the horrific consequences that that involves in terms of the outcome for any sort of proper treatment of the mental health victim. With such a budget surplus surely more services for the physically disabled should be provided. This should not be just a state responsibility.

The forgotten people in recent budgets have been age pensioners. Let me read a letter from several constituents at Manildra, a village between Orange and Parkes. The letter is addressed to Peter Andren MP and says:

Dear Sir

…                …              …

We do not smoke or drink, we cannot afford to go on holidays or a night out.

By the time we pay our rates, Phone, & water Bills with G.S.T. on these. There is not much left. We have to pay $250 twice a year for sewage which we haven’t got yet—

in that village, which again is an infrastructure problem—

& at our age we will probably be dead & gone by the time it gets here.

Here in Manildra we have to pay 145.9 per litre for petrol per Lt. We have to have a car to get around for our Groceries, Doctors & specialist, Pink Slips go up every year for your car—

of course, they are a state responsibility for inspection—

& green slips go up as well. The Prime Minister said, they help with the pharmaceutical, yes! they might. But we have to spend over $250 Dollars before we can go on the free list. Every time you go to town for your Groceries they have jumped up quite a bit. So you can see there is very little that you can go out and have a good time on.

The Prime Minister can go over seas quite a few times a year. And going on the newspaper, pays over $9,000.00 Dollars a night, just for a bed to sleep in.

We would think it like Christmas if we could get away for a short holiday.

That is symptomatic of the pressures on the elderly out there and of the fact that the age pension is not keeping up with the cost of living. Surely in a time of such surpluses we should be able to properly adjust. I suggest that we should be looking at 27½ per cent of the average weekly earnings as a fair pension in this country, given the circumstances that have prevailed since the GST and given the current pressure of the cost of living.

I will reserve my comments on the plight of our Aboriginal Australians until my contribution to the debate on the Northern Territory land rights legislation. But I will say here that, until Aboriginal Australians are treated as equal partners in their own self-determination, until the top-down paternalistic, government-knows-best approach is abandoned, until we talk with and not about Aboriginal society and until we stop marginalising and defaming Aboriginal society, there is no way forward for a people whose spirit and esteem has been broken over and over again. Of course we need to address child abuse and family violence—as we should throughout our society. But the bigger challenge, as it has been for 200 years and more, is to address the legitimate grievances that go to the very soul of our Indigenous first nation and its peoples.

We stand up in parliament and describe the horrific attacks on children—which do occur; we know and admit that—but how often do we stand up and describe the attacks that occur on children, siblings and adults in our non-Indigenous society? I was appalled to see the degree of detail that it was felt necessary to use in question time to highlight the circumstances in some of the Aboriginal communities. Sure, there is dysfunctionality. But there is certainly dysfunctionality in many of our other communities, societies, suburbs, villages and towns. We need to take a far more measured approach in this circumstance because we are talking about people who are the battering ram of the most outrageous of racist attacks, not from the parliament but from too many Australians. Those Australians will grab hold of this information to further damn Indigenous communities and to further squash, tread down and erode any self-esteem within those communities. I beg caution in this debate, because we run the risk of fuelling the fires of racism in this country.

Let me turn to the energy crisis facing the country and the pathetic lack of commitment to alternative energy options contained in the budget. The Prime Minister was saying a month or so ago that he did not believe nuclear energy was on the horizon, or words to that effect. The argument went that with our huge coal reserves there was little need for energy from any other source—energy, that is, for power generation. It has been estimated that we have enough coal for 300 years. I would hate to think of the state of the world by then if coal was still being used, clean or not.

But on his road to Washington the Prime Minister had some sort of revelation and now firmly believes that nuclear energy is inevitable in Australia. Does this mean that he is also talking about nuclear powered cars, trucks, planes and ships? Of course not. But power generation accounts for but 30 per cent of our greenhouse problems and the resulting climate change. Transport is heading from 16 per cent towards 20 per cent and increasing rapidly. All the TV and video footage of smoking factory and power station stacks—much of it steam, incidentally, in the case of power stations—is very convincing. But the silent, often invisible, killer is coming from the engines of our cars—invisible, that is, until you look at the haze over Sydney at certain times of year, Los Angeles or New Delhi, where it gets down to around waist level.

Nuclear power stations would cost an absolute fortune and consume much energy-depleting fuel in their construction. They take 10 to 15 years at least to get up and running and then use huge amounts of energy to extract the finite and very impure uranium ore required to run them. Then there is that little problem of what to do with all that indestructible radioactive waste. This government has encouraged debate on nuclear energy—and I have no problem with that—but why has it refused to extend the two per cent mandatory target for renewable energy to at least five per cent, which most experts who know regard as the minimum requirement? Why aren’t we encouraging a mix of wave, wind, hydrogen and, most importantly, solar energy initiatives? It would not have anything to do with the short-term interests of the mining and oil sector, or the overseas companies lining up to build nuclear power plants around the world, would it?

Let me put a few points on the record regarding solar energy, a technology which Australia once led until lack of interest and support from successive governments forced it to seek encouragement in Europe, while we continued to promote quarrying of climate-destroying minerals for short-term and short-sighted economic gain. Indeed, talk about fool’s gold; this is fossil fuel fool’s gold. As the global crisis looms large, our government and most of the greedy West goes for a quick fix nuclear option, followed by emerging economies like India, China and now Indonesia—sitting as it does on the earthquake faults. All alternative energy sources on offer, whether they be hydrogen, ethanol or wind, have their limitations but a source of infinite energy shines on the planet every day and has the potential to fuel our homes and our transport.

The global oil crisis data suggests that all the conventional oil that has ever been consumed is equivalent to the energy of the sunlight intersecting our earth’s surface for just 12 hours. It is not as if the solar technology is not on the drawing board. The University of New South Wales School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering is an ARC centre of excellence and was the first organisation internationally to offer undergraduate training in solar energy. Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham are the developers of the world’s most efficient solar cells. The Uni of New South Wales school of renewable energy engineering is talking with Chinese production interests about the development of photovoltaic energy, the Chinese group being a major producer of silicon wafers.

At ANU, the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems has developed Sliver solar cell technology, aimed and claimed to reduce dramatically the cost of developing photovoltaic cells. There is much happening in solar research, but one can be forgiven for not knowing anything about it, given the government’s commitment. Solar is an obvious source of renewable energy, and the lazy and dangerous rush to nuclear defies logic. We need to conserve energy. We need to promote alternative clean energy, and the Prime Minister is talking up nuclear and selling off our national hydro scheme—short-term economic reins. Energy policy is no longer about planning; it is about handing over crucial responsibilities from the state to the market, and that is shameful.

Let me read into the record a letter I received from Doug Nicholas, who was in Parliament House this morning delivering letters to every member of parliament. He is a man who has put his business on hold to take up the cause of the Snowy Hydro issue. He attracted quite a deal of attention in the front foyer of this parliament about an hour or so ago. He writes:

… Mr Andren,

I am an engineer with no axe to grind who has put aside his business for a while to do something that matters more. Although the Snowy was, and remains, something of an environmental mess, it’s our mess and we’re beginning to clean it up. The robber barons are circling as this silent sale proceeds but I think there is still just a chance that broad public outrage could bring the three parliaments to their senses and perhaps allow a conscience vote or two. I have little doubt as to what the outcome might be.

Well, I have some doubts, but he continues:

To raise public awareness above the dismal 25% that I found out here—

this was a month ago—

amongst even the fairly well read, I am endeavouring to bring 100 widely respected Australians together to pen a collegiate letter to those parliaments and to all the people they serve.

That was three weeks ago, and that awareness is way up there above the 50 per cent mark now.

I had a meeting yesterday—along with some backbenchers from the government side and the member for New England—with the Prime Minister, Senator Minchin and others, including Mr Turnbull. It started out as, ‘There’ll be no inquiry,’ but I think the notes taken, the glances exchanged and the comments afterwards suggest that something is afoot. The only thing that the public will accept is a proper and open inquiry into this whole charade. We have legislation before the parliament now which was forced on the government by the public outcry. There was never going to be legislation. There was only a motion because it was built into the corporatisation act back in 1997. The states did not have to refer the privatisation to parliament. No, they looked after that facet of the whole thing. We now have legislation ostensibly to cap foreign ownership, but it also goes to the normalisation process that was supposed to be contained in this rushed-through motion that not even the backbenchers knew anything about. Not many people know much about the ramifications of this privatisation anyway.

Here we have an opportunity for legislation that, under normal circumstances, would go to a full parliamentary inquiry. Let us see if the government is prepared to send it to an inquiry. Let us see if it is prepared to call off any engagement with the states in this sale until such time as all of these outstanding issues and concerns are addressed and the people have had a chance to have their say. They will have that chance in Sydney next week and here in Canberra on 13 June. The Prime Minister must back off. He must agree to a public inquiry, not only to sort out the outstanding holes in the sale process, not only to review the corporatisation process, not only to address the fact that New South Wales has already breached the snowy corporatisation legislation by failing to set up a scientific committee and report as required—not only for all of those reasons—but to satisfy the demands of the electorate. They believe that this is a piece of national, iconic infrastructure that is absolutely crucial for the three things that we in this country are engaged in at the moment: the environment; clean energy, and the ability of a privatised operator to manipulate the peak demand in this country; and that crucial resource of water. They say we are not handing over the ownership, but we are certainly handing over the control of it.

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