Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to make a contribution to the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills. This budget, which looks to be little different from many others we have seen, has sunk very quickly without a trace There were big build-ups in the media in the months and weeks leading up to budget night. Leaks were being carefully provided—and, of course, those leaks were not pursued by the police—to the media, which then covered them. The budget came but has now slipped away from the public memory. It is no wonder that the government look increasingly bewildered. But there is also a sense of arrogance in that bewilderment. It is as if the government are expecting the people of Australia to roundly congratulate them on the budget. This is the kind of hubris that starts to infect long-term governments. You know that they have occupied the Treasury bench for too long when their expectation is that a cynical exercise of giving out money will be roundly applauded by the public.

I am of a view—and it applies to all governments, regardless of their political persuasion—that the public have got to the point where they expect budgets to provide these sorts of give-aways because, unfortunately, they have an expectation of us as politicians to pursue the lowest common denominator in setting a future agenda through budgets. The budget did not capture the imagination of the public because they saw it within that framework. I was certainly encouraged by the Leader of the Opposition’s reply to the budget, in which he attempted to rebuild a view that a budget should be about setting out an agenda for the future that states what the priorities are and how the spending commitments within that budget should reflect those long-term commitments.

Listening to the Treasurer on budget night, I was particularly astounded—even more so than in the previous two years that I have been in this place and heard budget speeches given by the Treasurer—at how his speech was like a shopping list. It lacked a story about his agenda and an explanation as to why it had those priorities. I would have thought that the Treasurer, in his big announcement about the Higher Education Endowment Fund, would have discussed why the fund was such a significant investment for the long-term future of our country; why the government, after 11 years, decided that investing in public education was a worthwhile thing to do or why education had some contribution to make to the future prosperity of the nation—but none of that was in his speech. Indeed, it was almost like saying: ‘I’ve got this list of people to pay off with a bit of a sweetener in the budget. It is such a long list and I need to get through it, so I can’t say anything more broadly about what my agenda is for the future or why I have structured the budget in the way that I have.’ That attitude was reflected on in some of the informed commentary following the budget. For example, the ANZ federal budget report said:

... we find it impossible not to wonder whether future generations of Australians might not look back upon the nearly $400bn of windfall gains that have been redistributed through this and the preceding four Budgets and wonder whether we could not have had rather more far-reaching reform, for that enormous sum.

This is not from opposition members; this is from the ANZ’s own federal budget report.

Peter Saunders, the social research director for the Centre for Independent Studies, said in the Australian on 10 May:

What was the overall rationale driving Peter Costello’s 12th budget? What fundamental objectives was he trying to achieve? What key principles informed his decisions?

In the same opinion piece, Mr Saunders went on to say:

... the Treasurer is so awash with taxpayers’ money that he really does not know what to do with it.

I can hardly think of a more damning statement to make about a nation’s Treasurer than, at a time when he has windfall income, he has no capacity to build a vision for future prosperity around which he can structure a funding policy. Again, it is not members on this side saying that; this is the Centre for Independent Studies saying that. I think there is some fairly good indication in this sort of commentary about why the budget failed to inspire anybody out there in the wider community.

It is certainly quite serious criticism from the government’s own fellow travellers and it is not the first time that such strong criticism has been forthcoming from the Centre for Independent Studies. In the policy issue for the summer 2006-07, the government’s policy cops a bucket of criticism in an article titled ‘The rise of big government conservatism’. The article can be summed up by its last sentence, which says:

Modern conservatism may turn out to be not as family friendly as it seems.

The article is talking about this government being one of the biggest spending governments in terms of churning money through a taxation system back into welfare handouts that are targeted to have particular electoral impact and, clearly, a lot of the conservative economic commentators do not see that as a useful or worthwhile thing to do—and, clearly, neither does the general public.

I must say, though, that I am sure many other offices like mine have been quite inundated with calls from people on disability support pensions wanting to know what is so unworthy about them that they miss out on the sugar-coated lolly that came in the budget for age pensioners. It is not something I bother trying to explain to them—I do not see why I should—but they do not understand why they have been overlooked, particularly on top of the Welfare to Work reforms that have affected them so significantly anyway. I have had many meetings in my own electorate with disability support providers who are dealing with people who are being very poorly treated through that process and, as a result, having great difficulties.

We have seen from the government just this week an example of this—and I will touch on industrial relations legislation within the broader economic framework in this speech because once again I have been gagged from speaking in the debate in the parliament today. I never had the opportunity to speak on the original legislation; I was gagged from speaking in that debate. This is one of the most important reforms that this government is touting around the country in its term of government, yet, as a representative for my area, twice it has denied me the capacity to discuss it in the House. So I will take this opportunity to make some observations on that.

It just astounds me to hear the government saying that since it introduced the Work Choices legislation in 2006 the legislation has become so significant to the wellbeing of the economy, so significant to the creation and sustenance of jobs, particularly for the long-term unemployed, and that it is such an important and worthwhile reform that any changes Labor proposed to that legislation would be devastating. The economy would collapse. There would be mass unemployment again. It would be absolutely impossible and, in fact, quite destructive to propose any sort of change to the 2006 Work Choices legislation!

I will admit that the government’s first proposed reforms were not dramatic. Changing the name of the legislation probably was not going to bring the sky down. It was clearly a paint job. But the government so significantly does not understand that at the heart of the problem with its Work Choices legislation is the fact that the general population feels that there should be a balance. In any of these issues there are two competing interests—and everybody understands that—and both those competing interests have legitimate claims and legitimate needs to be met by government intervention. You have to get a balanced approach. Clearly, the general public feels that, having got control of the Senate, the Prime Minister and this government have then gone too far in one direction and that changing the name is not going to change the outcome.

Indeed, I am often amused by the actions of the government senator who has an office in my town. Whenever I am looking at any of these issues, I meet with my local business chamber, the local branch of the Australian Industry Group, the South Coast Labour Council and different union representatives, and I take all their views on board—a pretty balanced approach, one would have thought. But try and get a Liberal senator to meet with a single union organisation. This government represent an entirely one-sided view of these issues. Not only do they see unions, union representatives or, indeed, the individual workers who I know have attempted to make appointments to discuss these issues as not having a legitimate view but they see them as being somehow groups to be attacked and vilified. The class war is really being run in this nation by the government benches, not by this side. What we are talking about is trying to get some balance back into the system.

Some new amendments have come before us. If we had spoken about these amendments a month ago, this government would have been talking about the end of the world as we know it and saying that those sorts of reforms would create destruction throughout our community. Young people would never be able to get a job, they would have said. We would see mass unemployment occurring and businesses moving offshore—that is the sort of rhetoric we would have been getting from the government. Now suddenly they never meant that to happen. People misunderstood the legislation. They have got to go back and correct it. Perhaps if they had allowed a decent debate and review process at the time they brought the legislation in some of these issues could have been teased out and addressed in the first place.

Now we have an amendment coming before the parliament which again has been subject to limited debate, with many of us being gagged from participating in it. The amendment had itself to be amended the night before we had the conversation in the House about it. This is very poor policy making. To treat good debate within this place in this way and to discount the contribution it can make to ensuring that the best possible legislation goes forward is arrogant.

I will simply make the point that, from now on, every time Labor talk about a proposed reform of this system and the government scream that it will be the end of the world as we know it, we can quite simply say, ‘That is what you said about the fairness test.’ Every time we tried to talk about low-income earners who are not in the high-demand mining jobs—the cleaners, the hospitality workers, the restaurant workers and the retail worker—who are getting screwed over and said, ‘This is an unfair system for them,’ the government screamed that we did not understand, that we were going to cost these people jobs and that, ‘Wasn’t it good they had a job?’ Now they bring in their own amendments to their own legislation and say that this is a good outcome.

They have no legitimacy anymore in criticising proposed reform of this system; none whatsoever—unless what they are really saying is, ‘We are cynically putting this in place to avert a political problem in an election year.’ Let us remember what the Prime Minister said when he first touted these reforms: they were not really needed. The end result of that argument is that this amendment is being made because people might talk to people who know someone who knows a niece who had a son that had had a bad problem. That was the Prime Minister’s direct framing of this particular reform. He said: ‘It is not really needed but there is a perception out there that someone might know someone who has got a problem. Therefore, we are going to spend $340 million and employ 600 inspectors to resolve a perceived problem that does not really exist.’ I am suspicious of that approach to policy reform. It is certainly not sincere and therefore one wonders how long lasting it will be and how dependent on the outcome of the election it is.

As I wrap up to complete today’s session, I want to make the point that the budget is clearly not attracting the level of attention that the government had hoped it would because it is pretty cynical. We all need to lift our game in talking about the future and build a vision for the future economy of this country that does not simply rely on quick fixes. I assume that I am close to the 12.30 pm mark, so I might leave my comments there. I thank the House for indulging me in covering a broad range of issues within my speech on the appropriation bill.

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