Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise with pleasure in this chamber to talk about the appropriation bills before us—Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008, Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2007-2008, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008, Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2006-2007 and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2006-2007. In talking about the budget that has been brought down by this government and on the comments recently made by the Prime Minister when he said, ‘Australian families have never been better off’, I want to reflect on the response of people in my electorate to the budget. One would expect that, given the amount of funding that is in the budget and the tax cuts, it would have been universally approved. Whilst polling by the media indicates that there has been some approval by the public, I have found in my electorate that the tax cuts do not really offset the interest rate increases that my electorate has been subjected to since the 2004 election. There have been four successive interest rate rises since 2004 and eight successive increases in official interest rates since May 2002. Why does that interest me?

According to the 2001 census, Holt has the highest rate of mortgages of any electorate in this country. They are good people in my electorate. A lot of young families have shifted to my electorate with the hope of building their families and building their lives. What they are seeing currently, and what they have been subjected to for some period of time, is an increased cost of living and the burdens that it is putting on them. These are quite substantial and should not be underestimated. When I talk with them about how they respond to the increased cost of living—which is something that is repeatedly raised with me—they reflect on things like health costs. New data released by the Department of Health and Ageing shows that health costs have continued to rise dramatically under this government. The average out-of-pocket amount of a visit to a GP has increased 12 per cent since the December quarter last year, from $16.98 to $18.99. The cost of visiting a doctor has more than doubled during the life of this government. That may not sound like very much to some people, but it is for families with young children that need to go to the doctor on a frequent basis. The average cost of a visit to a specialist has increased 20 per cent, from $33.56 to $40.10; and the average cost of obstetrics services has increased a massive 27.5 per cent, from $62.34 to $79.51. That again has particular relevance to my electorate, because in the city of Casey there are over 3,000 births each year. It is sometimes referred to as Nappy Valley, but it is the proud location of a large number of young families.

In reflecting on the implications of the increase in the cost of living, I refer to local community based organisations as third-party references. One is the Casey North Community Information and Support Service, which is very ably directed by Susan Magee. She refers to the impact of the increased costs of living, particularly health costs, and says that often clients do not access medical assistance as they are not able to pay the associated costs. Emergency relief that is distributed to assist with the costs of chemist products and scripts, for example, has increased from $2,346 in the 2004-05 financial year to $3,413 in the 2005-06 financial year, which is an increase of 45 per cent. That is a substantial increase. For this financial year to date the figures are approximately the same as for the whole of the 2005-06 financial year, so the level of assistance will increase again this year, obviously. The Cranbourne Information and Support Service, which is directed by Leanne Petrides, reports that they budget $250 per month for chemist accounts. In April this year they spent $401. This was primarily for prescriptions, but, worryingly, also included occasional assistance with baby formula.

According to ABS data, education costs rose by 4.2 per cent throughout the year to the March quarter. Let us look at the impact this has had on organisations like the Casey North Community Information and Support Service and the Cranbourne Information and Support Service. Susan Magee states that 52 families were assisted with school costs as a consequence of the increase in the costs of education in the 2005-06 year. In the financial year to date, 56 families have already been assisted with costs associated with education. Compare this to 2003-04, when 22 families were assisted. The Cranbourne organisation, in addition, spent $11,000 for its back to school program. It provided just over 100 local families with money to go towards the cost of textbooks, school uniforms, stationery and shoes. It is only the second year that this organisation has run the program, and it has had to spend $2,000 more this year. Unfortunately, it has had to turn 20 families away due to lack of funding. So there is something very serious happening as a consequence of the increase in the cost of living.

According to ABS data, over the last 12 months to the March quarter 2007 the cost of food rose by 4.6 per cent and the price of fruit rose by 14.9 per cent. According to Casey North director Susan Magee, more than $81,000 has been distributed this financial year through food vouchers and food parcels. In the month of April alone 186 people were assisted with food vouchers. According to Leanne Petrides in Cranbourne, in March 2007 they provided a total of 327 adults and 336 children with emergency relief—support with food, petrol, Met tickets and pharmaceuticals. Just over 19 per cent were first time clients, a 19 per cent increase in the number of people given emergency relief during the same month last year. There is something substantially bad happening in this electorate as a consequence of the increased cost of living.

Petrol is particularly pertinent to an outer suburban electorate like mine. The average price for unleaded petrol in Narre Warren this morning was apparently 129.9c per litre. The average price for unleaded petrol in Endeavour Hills this morning was 129.6c per litre. The average price for unleaded petrol in Cranbourne this morning was 130.3c per litre. According to the Australian Automobile Association, the average price of unleaded petrol in metropolitan Melbourne in January this year was 113.1c per litre. Local families have faced price increases of the order of 19 per cent since the start of the year. This has had a substantial impact in electorates like mine which are very car dependent.

Again the consequences of this price rise can be seen through the Casey North Community Information and Support Service. In April 2007, 275 people were assisted with the cost of travel, through petrol vouchers or assistance with the cost of public transport. In Cranbourne, the vast majority of Leanne Petrides’ clients are receiving Safeway vouchers which can be used for food and petrol. Thirty dollars is the maximum amount that she can give out in order to work within the budget. Anecdotally, Leanne understands that many of the clients are using some, if not all, of their voucher allocation on petrol and often have to toss up purchasing food, purchasing petrol, paying bills or buying clothes. There is something bad happening out there.

Look at rent, for example, and the substantial increases in the price of rent. Susan Magee from Casey North says that there is a dearth of rental stock in the region. Real estate agents have confirmed that rents are increasing as local landlords take the opportunity to benefit from the lack of rental accommodation in the area. Auctioning of rental properties has happened. This has not happened before in this area. She believes that landlords are now accepting offers of rent greater than what is being asked for. Leanne Petrides from Cranbourne sees many people who are struggling with rental costs. The rents have risen slowly but surely and there are many more people applying for each property. One client told her that there were about 60 people viewing every average property in Cranbourne recently—so many that they had to be taken through in stages. Another client recently moved into the area from interstate. Her family told her that she could not really afford it. They offered $20 above the advertised price for a rental property and became the successful applicants. Many more said they could not compete in a market where they had to vie with so many other people and where they cannot afford the advertised rent, let alone offer more. More people are now paying more than 45 per cent of their income in housing costs, either through rental costs or mortgage payments.

There are some further financial pressures that have been experienced. Susan Magee has seen family breakdown occur due to a range of issues. However, financial pressure appears to be a huge contributor at present. This is often followed by severe financial hardship as income is split across two households. This often results in health issues and, in particular, mental health issues due to stress. In Cranbourne, Leanne Petrides thinks that it is important to emphasise the fact that the vast majority of clients who come to her are ordinary everyday people who only come to her agency when in crisis. These are families who struggle with rent or mortgage payments, school costs, utility costs, food and petrol. The costs of these items rise insidiously and regularly, and people in our communities ‘are expected to just bear the brunt of this price shock’—her words.

On top of the financial pressure on families in my electorate is the issue of broadband. It is a real and substantial issue. It is an issue that is literally costing business opportunities in my electorate. What we hear and see is that there is basically no plan, no leadership and clearly no vision for this essential area—an area which will power the next wave of economic reform. In recent years, the Howard government have had a National Broadband Strategy, an Australian government action plan, a National Broadband Strategy Implementation Group, a Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme, a Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund, a Demand Aggregation Brokers Program, a metropolitan broadband black spots program, an Australian Research and Education Network, a Broadband for Health initiative, a broadband pharmacy program, a telecommunications action plan, Broadband Connect and the Broadband Guarantee. However, notwithstanding the myriad of programs that I have just detailed to this chamber, there are still significant numbers of families in my electorate that cannot access broadband. That is significant.

What Labor discovered through the Senate estimates process was that the metropolitan broadband black spots program has been an abject failure. For example, more than two years after this $50 million program was announced by the Prime Minister during the 2004 election campaign, government bungling has resulted in $1.3 million being spent on administration costs while only $200,000 has been spent on providing broadband services. It is interesting to see what The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, has said with respect to this. On Tuesday, 8 August 2006, Senator Coonan stated, ‘No-one is complaining about broadband speeds in metropolitan areas.’ She must not have come down to my electorate, I can assure you.

Just to assure Senator Coonan that a lot of people are complaining about the broadband speeds in metropolitan areas, I would like to detail—at their request—some difficulties that some of my constituents are having with broadband access. I will give you their names and their details. Elvis Bernard is a father of three in Narre Warren South. He applied for ADSL 16 months ago. In that time, he has made applications with all the major internet service providers. Sixteen months later, he is still not connected to ADSL. He was advised that he is too far from the exchange—around 4.3 kilometres and he had to be within four kilometres. He is 300 metres too far away to access ADSL. His three kids are of primary school age and they need access to this service for their school assignments. Instead, they have to contend with slow dial-up speeds on the internet. Elvis is a licensed custom broker and he could bring a laptop home and work on weekends and after hours by logging on to the company server remotely. However, this is not an option for him. It just cannot happen, because it is too slow to work effectively. Telstra have given him the option of a wireless service but this is not appropriate as he could end up paying hundreds of dollars a month, which he cannot and should not need to afford. He should be connected to ADSL.

Another constituent of mine is Elwyn Hutchings, a husband and father living in Narre Warren South. He applied in February 2007 for ADSL when he moved into his house. This may not seem like a significant delay but the house he moved into was five years old. So for five years that house has not been able to access ADSL. Telstra advised that he quite simply could not be connected. His 14-year-old daughter needs broadband to research her school assignments. Elwyn owns a small commercial cleaning business and dial-up is too slow and too frequently loses connection for him to do quotes, look for machinery and find government contractors and tenders on the internet. He advises me that all 13 houses in his street cannot access ADSL.

Brett Fox, lives in Hampton Park and has been endeavouring for the past 20 months to get ADSL connected to his home.

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