Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to contribute to this debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and related bills. Let me say to the member for Lalor that this side of the parliament has broad representation from the community, not the narrow base from the unions that we see over there. This particular member was a unionist, and I can assure you that I do know what goes on in unions. I recall when I started work as a canecutter I had to have a ticket before I could sign on. I was not allowed to start work until I had a union ticket. Of course, the union was very tricky in those days too, because they came around in November for another ticket, so they got two tickets out of the employees in the one year. I have to say we never got a vote to have a say in what the union bosses were deciding on our behalf; they made all the decisions. I can see Australia going back to compulsory unionism, with union fees of up to $500 and workers being forced to contribute to the Labor Party’s union mates who supply the funds that run the dishonest campaigns on work practices that we have just heard the member for Lalor talking about.

I want to congratulate the Treasurer. I think when all the political dust has settled Peter Costello will go down in history as one of the best treasurers this country has ever seen—and I do not say that lightly. I came into this House in 1996, when the Howard government won office. I certainly recall the debate that took place about economic management at that time. I can recall very clearly the member for Brand during the election campaign saying, ‘We are in surplus.’ But, of course, when the Howard government came to power we found out very quickly that in fact the deficit for that year was $10.6 billion. So I have no doubt in my mind that, if the Australian people wrongly put their trust in the Labor Party, we would see that profligate spending yet again. Nothing has changed over there. A few faces have changed, but the ideology has not changed. If you look behind some of the statements that are made by individuals, you will see what their agenda really is even though we have a facade out there at present with them trying to say, ‘We are fiscal conservatives.’

I watched the opposition very closely when the Treasurer was delivering the budget, and I have to say it was a fairly glum frontbench. At the press conference later the member for Lilley could really only say, ‘Me too. We would do exactly the same.’ That spelt out the fact that the Treasurer had brought down a very good budget. As I walk around my electorate of Page on the North Coast of New South Wales, that is the response I am getting from people in the street—they think this was a very responsible and good budget.

Let us look at some of the areas that the budget covered. We all know that basic health, particularly the hospital situation, is covered by the states in Australia. There is often confusion in the community about this and I think it is encouraged by the opposition who try to somehow confuse the people about Federation and just exactly what the states are responsible for and what the federal government is responsible for. It is fairly clear that the federal government is responsible for Medicare and the PBS, it is responsible for handing the GST to the states and it also has an agreement with the states on health care which funds about 50 per cent of the public hospital system.

In my state of New South Wales, if you look very closely at the contribution of the state government, you will see that it is appalling and abysmal. If you really want to see how the Labor Party acts in government then you should have a close look at New South Wales. The income for New South Wales in just over 10 years has gone from $25 billion to $40 billion, yet we have a government that cannot provide basic health services, has starved the public school system and cannot contribute to the road system. In fact, if we have a close look—and I will come to the Pacific Highway in a minute—we will see that they are not contributing to that particular sector at all. You have to ask the question: where is the money going? In 10 years, where has all of that money—which is something like $15 billion or $16 billion—gone in the state budget? I think that is a question that needs to be asked over and over again because this government can record surpluses with good management but the states cannot even come close to it. In fact, New South Wales is going back into deficit.

We have provided in this budget some support to the dental area. Let me remind the parliament again from my experience in the New South Wales government that public dental care in hospitals is in the state health budget. It is not a federal responsibility. But, because the states have neglected this particular area, the budget provides $2,125 where a patient is referred by a doctor because their teeth are causing them a serious health problem.

We are also addressing a situation that I think has become very apparent—there is a shortage of dentists, particularly in the country areas of Australia. We are providing $65 million over four years for a regional dental school. We are also trying to encourage students from the city to enrol in the dental school—I think the funding is going through Charles Sturt University—so that we can get more dentists in rural areas.

Research is always a very important area. We have some of the best research scientists in the world. Because we have the fiscal responsibility to provide a surplus and are able to fund some of these things, the budget is providing $486 million for a world-class health and medical facility. Obviously that is going to provide benefits into the future, particularly for the research needs of the community.

There are a lot of retirees in my area, between pensioners and superannuants, and the budget has taken into consideration the contribution those people have made to Australia. If Australia is in a period of wealth—and I think that there is no doubt that it is—then they should benefit as well as all other Australians. The government has been able to provide $500 for aged Australians, which they should receive by the end of June, a $1,000 carer payment and a $600 carer allowance for every eligible person in care. If you look at superannuants, you will see that we have increased the levels whereby people do not pay tax. For a couple it is now over $50,000. For a single it is up to $25,000. Superannuants can earn income up to that level before they start to pay tax. That is undoubtedly a very big benefit to many people in my electorate who have retired on superannuation.

There are some areas that we really need to look at closely, particularly having heard the Leader of the Opposition in his reply to the budget talking about where Labor would find some savings in the budget. Coming from rural Australia, I am well aware of where the Labor Party usually find savings. It is usually from programs for regional Australia. We have already heard the Labor Party say on several occasions where they believe they could make some of these cuts. I think that the rural people of Australia need to understand that programs like Roads to Recovery, which is very well received across Australia and is allowing councils to operate local rural roads, is one of the first areas the Labor Party is going to cut.

We also have to remember Regional Partnerships, which the member for Melbourne and the member for Wills have attacked on many occasions in this particular parliament. Let us not forget how these programs originated. They originated because rural Australia was finding it very difficult. Many of the institutions in small towns in rural Australia were closing down. Rural Australia was not benefiting like the rest of Australia, and it still is not. We have a situation in Australia where the major cities are doing well and the economy is doing well but we have areas in rural Australia that are not doing so well. These programs were to help some of our fellow Australians. Regional Partnerships is one of those programs whereby, if a local community identify what they think will improve their outcomes in the future and are prepared to put in money, the government will support them to ensure long-term employment in some of those regional areas. That is another program that the Labor Party is going to cut.

The black spot program, which was reinstituted by this government—and I am sure some of the members of the Labor Party opposite have benefited from it as well—identifies areas, or potential areas, of serious road accidents, and it helps the states in overcoming those problems by providing finance. That is another area that the Labor Party is going to cut.

We also need to remember that, with the worst drought in 100 years, this government has been very generous. There have been substantial payments and there have been substantial changes in the way that those payments have been made. Having been a minister for agriculture in New South Wales I look at the budget that the New South Wales government is providing for drought and I am appalled at the way that they have cut the funding to drought support. If it were not for the federal government providing for drought relief many of these areas would be in desperate trouble.

Much has been said in this parliament by the member for Grayndler and the member for Kingsford Smith about climate change. They ignore the fact, of course, that this government has been putting forward practical responses over many years—$2 billion in fact has been already spent, including $500 million on low-emissions technology, which, if we are going to do anything about emissions, obviously is a very important area of research to try to overcome some of the greenhouse gases that are being emitted.

We need to look at this very closely. The member for Grayndler comes in here with a clever throwaway line and says, ‘Just sign Kyoto. Just sign it—simple as that.’ Everything will disappear; climate change will be over—just sign Kyoto! In fact, if you have a close look at it, all you will do will be to export jobs, because the restrictions are not on undeveloped countries. I chaired a committee—the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage—in this parliament which made recommendations in this area some years ago. That bipartisan committee said very clearly that they did not believe that anything would change until the developed countries of this world were given credits for putting world’s best technology in developed countries. What that means is that they could reduce their emissions slowly as they brought the undeveloped countries up to better emissions control and gradually closed the gap. I can guarantee you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that that is the only way you are going to get a result, because you are not going to get the developed countries to do that unless you give them some incentive to do it. Let us forget about the Europeans, because they think they have a trade advantage in this. They are playing some games on this particular issue.

If we look at the facts, we also have to inform the public about what this is going to cost—and it is going to cost; there is no doubt about that. The Prime Minister has made it very clear in several statements that this country has to look very closely at modern technology in nuclear generation. Let me give you some facts, Mr Deputy Speaker. You can find a graph in the Switkowski report I think which will back up some of this. If we assume the average household has a $300 power bill, if we go to clean coal technology, which in fact pumps the gases back into the ground, that is double the cost of the present generation. So the family bill would go from $300 a quarter to $600 a quarter. If you had a look at wind, you would find that the family bill would go from $300 a quarter to around $1,000 a quarter. If you had a look at solar, you would find that the family bill would go from $300 a quarter to around $1,500 a quarter. If you looked then at nuclear, gas and thermal in some instances, the family bill would go from $300 to $450. They are rough figures, but they give some indication that nuclear has to be considered in this country. Yet we have the troglodytes opposite who do not want to accept that it has a place in power generation. We know that if we are going to have baseload then the only areas from which we are going to get that baseload is with nuclear, gas, thermal or clean coal. The people have to be told. Do not go out there with some fancy story and say, ‘It is simple. Just sign Kyoto.’ Tell them what it will cost, because, unfortunately, they are going to find out. Some people prefer to put in solar panels. As I said, it is an expensive way to generate electricity and it is intermittent. Nevertheless, the government has supplied $8,000 for solar panels. So if people want to go ahead and save some emissions in that way, that is certainly an option for them.

But you have to do something about the emissions of the big emitters. The United States is obviously the world’s biggest emitter. But have a close look at China and India, because they are rapidly becoming the world’s biggest emitters. If somehow or other we cannot help them to overcome their emissions, we are going to do nothing about the emissions that are going to be going into the atmosphere. Australia contributes something like 1.6 per cent of global greenhouse emissions. Let me quickly add that counted in that is the 20 million cattle we have and an estimate of the amount of methane they emit each day. If you take it as correct that we have 1.6 per cent, the way the Chinese economy is growing it would take six months for them to increase their volume of emissions of greenhouse gases to the level that Australia emits in a year—that is, the increase in the Chinese economy in six months will generate the emissions that we have in Australia in a year. Those are the areas we have to tackle.

I think the minister for the environment has got it right when he says that we have to deal with countries that are clear-felling their forests—Indonesia is obviously one that is close to our doorstep—but you will not stop them until you give them some economic incentive. You have to give those economic incentives if you are going to get some result, because most of these people are worried about the next meal—they are not worried about emissions into the atmosphere; they are worried about the next meal. Obviously that is something that we have to address to see how we can help to stop the waste of forests that are being cleared unnecessarily.

In the short time I have left, I want to make it clear that this government has always been strong on defence. Even when we had to cut some of the budgets to pay off the Labor debt that we inherited of some $96 billion, we did not cut defence. Since then we have increased the spending on defence and the Australian people can feel safe that this government will certainly protect them from terrorism, will certainly protect this country from any threat from outside. We will work closely with our neighbours to ensure that we have good relations with them, which will help in the long run to ensure the safety of this country.

The $10 billion water plan is a very big step in the right direction. I could speak for 20 minutes on this because I was the longest serving minister for water resources in New South Wales. I had no doubt as a minister in New South Wales that we had some problems, especially in the delivery of water. Most of these channels were dug by horse and scoop—a huge undertaking in those days with fairly primitive equipment. But many of them are just passing over sand, and gravel in some instances, and there is a leakage of water that takes place. Water is undoubtedly a very, very scarce resource in this country. So we have to address some of these issues.

The drought at the present time is one of those things endemic to Australia—drought is the norm in Australia. We are experiencing a very bad drought, but we still need to be a lot smarter in the way that we deliver water. During my time we put in drip irrigation, we put in microjet irrigation, we laser levelled areas for rice and bred smaller varieties so that we used less water—all of those things need to be done. I can assure you it is very difficult to get states to agree on anything. And it was very difficult to get states to agree on water policy. The only way is to have an overriding body, such as the federal government—with the cooperation of the states, because they do have the expertise—so we can tackle some of these problems, particularly for irrigation but also for water for towns along the way as well. I commend the budget to the House. I think it is a very responsible budget.

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