Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the commencement of my contribution to this debate, I must say how disappointed I am to sit in this place and listen to speeches from the government members that constantly blame the state governments for every problem that exists in Australia. The Commonwealth government is the national government. As the national government it must take responsibility. It has to show leadership and it has to deliver to the people, and not just blame the states or blame somebody else for any problem that exists.

Unfortunately, I was not as overwhelmed as and my praises for this budget are nowhere near as high as those of members on the other side of the House. I see it as a budget that lacks vision. It is not a budget for the future. Rather, it is a budget for now. It is about winning an election. It actually makes me feel quite sad because I see this as a lost opportunity. Here we are at the time of an economic boom and a resources boom—and what does the government do? It wastes what I see as a fantastic opportunity to actually put in place the structures and the plans that will ensure the prosperity of Australia into the future. It is not difficult to understand when you look at the government and see that it is led by a Prime Minister who looks to the past for his inspiration. I always categorise this Prime Minister as somebody who is taking Australia back to the future. He is a Prime Minister who is unable to embrace change. He dreams of the white picket fence and the world the way it was. He has a definite picture of the societal order that should exist in Australia.

That raises quite a bit of concern for me because this vision and the policies of the Howard government have led to a situation in Australia where there is a great gap between the haves and the have-nots. Surveys by the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that the richest 20 per cent of Australians have almost two-thirds of the nation’s wealth, or an average of $1.4 million per household. The poorest 20 per cent of Australians hold just one per cent of the nation’s wealth. They earn about $23,000 per household. That is of great concern to me and I think that as a nation we need to have in place policies that ensure that each and every person has the opportunity to share in the wealth of our nation.

Last week in this parliament we debated the legislation that led to the one-off bonuses being paid to people who are carers in receipt of the carer allowance, people who are on pensions and self-funded retirees. My concern in relation to this matter is that there is one group of people who missed out—that is, people who are in receipt of a disability support pension. I know that those people are very concerned that the government has disregarded them and their needs. Last week when I spoke on that legislation I raised the concerns of some of those people. One lady pointed out to me that she had very little food to last her until her next pension day. A young woman, Tracy Blair, works in my office on a volunteer basis. Tracy is confined to a wheelchair and she receives a disability support pension. She wrote me this letter:

Dear Jill:

I was rather disappointed with the lack of acknowledgement in the recent budget of people receiving the disability support pension. As we all know, there are many kinds of disabilities leading to various needs. What has been forgotten or missed is that these people in their own way contribute to society or the community. The fact that this group was forgotten while all other sectors of the community—aged care, childcare—benefited in this budget highlights the injustice. Having recognised this oversight, what can people on disability pension expect in the future?

I had to say to Tracy that, while the Howard government are in power, they can expect nothing because one of the signatures of the Howard government has been to totally disregard people on disability support pension. Another person from the member for Dobell’s electorate contacted me and commented that for people on disability support pension ‘invalid’ means ‘not valid’. In other words, they were invalid in the eyes of the Howard government.

This may be a good news budget for a number of people in Australia. It may be a good news budget to the people on the other side of this parliament. But I can certainly tell you it is not a good news budget if you are on a disability support pension and it is not a good budget if you are an unemployed Australian over the age of 55 who has to meet their mutual obligation by working in some voluntary capacity. I have also been contacted by people who fit into this group who say they use their own money to buy petrol to travel to the place where they volunteer and they have received no recognition in this budget. Whilst I welcome wholeheartedly the $500 bonus that has been given to pensioners, carers and veterans, little enough as it is, I really think the Howard government stands condemned for its divisive action in giving nothing to those disability support pensioners who often have much higher care needs than other pensioners. I hope that the government takes note of my concerns and I can assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I will be in there being an advocate, ensuring that the voices of those people who have contacted my office are heard.

The next issue I would like to concentrate on is the skills shortage. The shortage of skilled workers in Australia has increased enormously under the Howard government. The government has to a large extent ignored the skills shortage. Employer groups, which are strong supporters of the government, have been trying for a very long time to bring to the government’s attention the level of the skills shortage that exists in the country. I think our level of employment at the moment to a large extent reflects the fact that we have such a skills shortage and employers are looking, on an ever-increasing basis, to bring skilled workers in from overseas simply because the government has not done its job and has not looked after Australians who would like to train to work in a trade. They are now coming to recognise this fact, but they have ignored it for a very long time. I look to the technical colleges, the TAFE system that exists in my own state. I know that in 1996, when the Howard government was elected, it ripped money out of that TAFE system. That resulted in apprenticeship courses being reduced, pre-apprenticeship courses being reduced and young people who wanted to train in a trade being unable to undertake the training. I come from an area where trades are valued. Young people aspire to be trades men and women, and their inability to link into this system has been very detrimental for them on a personal level and for our society as a whole.

The announcement made by the Leader of the Opposition in his budget reply, when he said he would set up trade training centres in every high school in Australia, was welcomed wholeheartedly by people in the electorate of Shortland. Those high schools, both public and private, that will host these trade training schools will be able to train our tradespeople for the future—something that this government has failed to do.

The education policy that the Labor Party has put to the Australian people, its education revolution, concentrates on early childhood education, literacy and numeracy. It focuses on literacy and numeracy in a way that does not involve issuing vouchers or trying to make parents, teachers and students jump through hoops to get money; it makes a real commitment to improving literacy throughout the nation by boosting the teaching of maths and science in schools by offering a reduction in HECS and establishing a national curriculum. There is also a program to foster and build new, first-class facilities, and which looks at the sharing of facilities between government and non-government schools. In my own electorate, in the past community partnerships have been formed whereby local government and the department of education have worked together to build shared facilities. That has been very successful. I think any program that develops partnerships with the community and between schools is in the interests of the community, as are the trade training centres in schools that the Leader of the Opposition highlighted in his speech.

Other issues that he highlighted and which I wholeheartedly support include high-speed broadband access. I know it has been a big issue for businesses in my area. They were, and still are, particularly disappointed that the government has done nothing to remedy the issues surrounding broadband access and the fact that they are unable to access high-speed broadband.

I come from an electorate that has an older profile. I have many constituents who have been on dental waiting lists for very long periods of time. I spoke to one person last week who had throat cancer. This person must have a maxiofacial surgeon operate on their teeth just to remove a tooth. Because of the high demand for that service, this person has been on the waiting list for a very long period of time, and is likely to remain so. I must say that the announcement on dental care in the budget was a great disappointment to me. Having been involved in an inquiry into health funding, and having been involved in putting together the report titled The blame game, I was convinced that the government would embrace the need for a Commonwealth dental health program. I was extremely disappointed in the program that they announced in the budget. It is a program that will not remedy the problems that exist. There are 650,000 people on dental waiting lists throughout Australia. Many people are waiting on dental lists in the Shortland electorate, and they have to go through a very complicated process to even be referred to a dentist. There is still a copayment as well. I think that is going to be a big problem. Recently, I conducted a survey throughout my electorate. Overwhelmingly, people responded by saying that there was a great need for a dental health program and for the Commonwealth to be involved in dental health. The program that has been detailed in this budget will not resolve the problem. In the survey, overwhelmingly, the cost of living was highlighted as a problem.

I have brought along a few surveys to share with the House tonight to highlight the issues that people have commented on. One gentleman wrote that petrol was a big issue. The next person said that petrol and funding for dental services were big problems and said, ‘The government needs to act on them.’ The next sheet I look at again mentions petrol. The next one says, ‘The Howard government has given tax cuts but food and petrol prices have gone up and the cost of living is increasing each and every day.’ They are not my words; they are the words of people I represent in this parliament. The comments continue: petrol prices are way too high, pensioners are struggling, the pension will stretch only so far, with two living on a pension it only takes one to get ill and then their budget is wrecked. Petrol prices, high food prices and inflation are all highlighted as problems.

From the surveys, I have to say that Medicare bulk-billing for pensioners in my area is practically non-existent and we have also got a chronic doctor shortage, which this budget has done nothing to address. The surveys mention petrol prices and dental care for the aged as concerns. Petrol prices are highlighted over and over again. I have a few more comments here, but I think I have made the point that the survey comments highlight that the cost of living is increasing and the government has done nothing to help these people. As I said at the start of my contribution to this debate, the gap between the people who are rich and the people who are poor is getting greater. Two-thirds of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the people with high incomes while the bottom one per cent of people live on a very small wage.

The government could have done a lot more to help these people. The government could have decided that it would invest in giving these people the support that they need. The government could have decided to invest in housing. I must make the point that housing was totally ignored in this budget. Instead, the government decided that it would spend money on things like the Prime Minister’s chairs for the cabinet. An inordinate amount of money has been spent there—a total of $197,749. While people are having trouble putting food on the table, the Prime Minister is spending $197,000-plus on the cabinet room. There is also the PM’s alcohol budget—$110,000 on alcohol in the last four years? Come on, Mr Deputy Speaker: how can the Prime Minister go downstairs and face the opposition in question time and face the Australian people when he is abusing the system in that way while people are having difficulty putting food on the table? Throw into that the problems with advertising. This government is the second largest advertiser within Australia. This government has absolutely no conscience when it comes to selling its message. It is all about selling its message—not about planning for the future and not about ensuring that all Australians have a fair go. It is not a government that is about all Australians; it is a government for its mates and a government that wants to see itself re-elected at the election this year. (Time expired)

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