Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communication and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, and congratulations on your well-earned elevation to the deputy speakership. My comments today go to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2007-2008 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2007-2008. Before I make those remarks, I congratulate the member for Werriwa on his re-election but reassure him that he may no longer be troubled, as he put it, about the challenges young people face in the future. I would say to the member for Werriwa, who I value as a friend: you can never be complacent; you must always be vigilant. You may not be troubled today, but the young people of Australia require the best of all of us every day, and new challenges emerge. Remain vigilant, Sir, and that will be in the best interests of your young community. I am pleased you are not troubled at the moment. Many of us are troubled, though, by what we are seeing going on, and some of what we see going on is captured in these bills.

The Labor Party are trying to recreate themselves as fiscal conservatives. We heard it right throughout the election campaign and it proved to be quite an effective appeal—one of those things where if you hear it often enough you might actually believe it. We have heard about targets such as surpluses of two per cent of GDP and the like. I think all bar two budgets brought down during the Howard government were in surplus. They were difficult budgets year on year, but there were nine surpluses. We know the hard work that is involved in that.

We know also, before the Howard government was elected, of the spending bonanza of the Keating government. It could not save itself despite enormous spending and despite reassuring statements in the lead-up to, and even during, that election campaign that the budget was in surplus. We know that to be nonsense: the deficit was over $10½ billion and the incoming government had the difficult fiscal management task ahead of it of how to deliver on its election commitments and maintain the essential works and services the nation required, while ensuring we as a nation were not living off the bankcard, off the Visa card. The task of rebuilding the fiscal strength of the Commonwealth began under the Howard government.

The Rudd government today is basking in the glory of work that others have done for it. It needs to do, frankly, nothing to achieve what it set itself as challenging goals. This seems to be the hallmark of the Rudd government’s early days—lots of spin, lots of theatre, but little substance. Here is another example: setting oneself a fiscal target that has already been delivered and gifted to you is no evidence of fiscal management.

We look into these appropriation bills before the chamber today and we see an interesting story unfold—the claimed savings, the new expenditure, how it has been tough and difficult. In many respects, what Labor is doing is trying to create a budget crisis to justify wiping out things it did not like so much to put in things it wants to put in. That is an incoming government’s prerogative and I do not decry it, but let us be honest about what is actually going on. This is an attack on projects, initiatives and programs valued by many in the Australian public implemented by the former government but not to the liking of the incoming government. They are getting wiped out and replaced with other things. That is what is going on, and to mask it under some poorly created veil of a budget crisis is just utter nonsense. As time goes by, I think the Labor government will fall over itself as its own rhetoric comes back to haunt it.

In these bills, there are a number of funding supplementations for agencies and programs, and many of those are welcome and worth while. However, the programs and initiatives that are not featuring in this document require some attention. You see embedded in these measures calls for additional two per cent efficiency dividends. That is an interesting approach; it does not show any considered or thoughtful review of what agencies and departments are actually doing. The government is just saying, ‘We want a two per cent yield out of all of you.’ That is hardly being fiscally conservative; that is hardly a zero based budgeting approach where one values and evaluates activity. That is an across-the-board impact.

The challenges in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the department for which I used to have responsibility, include the increasing demands being placed on departmental staff. While the number of veterans is diminishing, they are ageing and, therefore, require more care. This required an increase in the coordination of the support that was provided. Anybody who takes a broad-brush look—as the Minister for Finance and Deregulation seems to have done—would not have even apprised themselves of that reality. So I say to those people, particularly the many public servants who probably thought it was a great result for the nation to have the Rudd government elected: be careful about the ham-fisted, clumsy, brutal approach that Labor is already displaying in its budgeting process. Be mindful that important projects, programs and activities can be cut for no other reason than they are disliked by the Labor Party. Be mindful, too, of the attack on rural and regional Australia in these two bills—so many resources are being dragged out of those areas.

Another thing to be mindful of is where we started. Contrast the challenge facing the new government with the contrasts that faced the previous government when it was elected. In 1996 there was an enormous Bankcard bill from the $96 billion debt Labor had accumulated and a budget deficit of $10½ billion on day-to-day outlays. We as a nation were spending $10½ billion more than we were bringing in in revenue. That presented some real budget challenges. Those challenges were addressed and overcome and the fiscal circumstances of the nation were turned around. Now we have an incoming government with a rolled-gold economy, swimming in cash, that is saying there is some kind of budget crisis. It is utter, unsustainable nonsense. I think more Australians will come to reflect on this matter. To scream about a crisis at a time when they are rolling in cash is extraordinary. They set targets which have already been met and then claim credit for meeting them. That gives us another extraordinary insight into the behaviour of the Rudd government even in these early months.

Let us be clear: to cut programs and projects because you do not like them is okay—make that case; and to say that funding should be directed to other priorities is okay—make that case. I note from some of the information provided here that people are getting stuck into rural and regional projects which are creating focal points for activity and enterprise in rural and regional communities—as though that is a bad thing. But if you look into where the money is being directed, you will see a little bit of that character coming through in some of the new funding allocations. Let us be clear: it is just a choice. Knock off things you do not like, even if they are working and making a meaningful contribution. Knock them off and put something else in there. That is okay. Governments can do that. But they should at least be frank about why they are doing that and be open about that being the motivation. They should not invent some kind of bogus fiscal crisis.

The bills touch on a couple of important areas. We have touched on the efficiency dividend and the hairy-chested bravado the minister for finance displays when he says, ‘We’re getting a two per cent efficiency dividend out of everybody, regardless of the impact.’ That is not terribly smart, but that is a decision that has been taken. I have provided one very simple, familiar example about how that can be a very poor approach.

Embedded in Labor’s policies are a number of undertakings which create obligations for agencies. Take the ABC, for instance. Nowhere in the ALP arts policy was there any commitment for additional funding, just some warm words. That is okay; that is the way much of the policy was developed. But embedded in it was a requirement that the ABC meet the Australian drama production standards that the commercial television networks are required to meet. The ABC do not currently have that obligation, but Labor is saying they should. That is also okay. But that will put a $60 million new requirement on the ABC to meet those Australian drama production requirements. It was not previously imposed upon them, but now it is to be imposed upon them. There is no extra funding but, in effect, there is a $60 million obligation jammed into the existing funding envelope of the ABC. What is going to be cut? How are they going to meet that commitment? The creative arts community, understandably, welcomed that commitment. But how will it be funded? The ABC have not received any reassurances from Labor policy that there will be any new funding or anything of that kind, just that Labor policy is to value the ABC—like the vast majority of Australians do. Welcome aboard to the Labor Party!

How is the new $60 million obligation which is being imposed going to be accommodated within a budget that is not growing? These are some of the fiscal management challenges that are being created by the ALP. This is not fiscal conservatism; this is fiscal decreeing by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation and then letting everyone else mop up the mess.

I challenge the Labor Party to be clear on where the $60 million is going to come from. What is going to be cut in the ABC to finance this new obligation—an obligation which the ABC currently does not have, which the Labor Party wants to impose upon it, at a time when there are no additional resources to do so? The former government used to say to the ABC: ‘We’d like certain things done. We recognise these things are over and above the charter of responsibilities.’ We have seen the rollout of additional services, activity in rural and regional areas and some effort to ensure there is local content on ABC regional radio. These were all sound measures, but the budget came with them. If you are going to ask for additional effort and activity beyond what has been shaped as the strategic plan and priorities for the ABC from its global budget, you supplement the global budget. More demands on and more requirements of the ABC require more resourcing. It is not a difficult equation, but it is now very difficult for the ABC. The board is faced with this challenge: where is the $60 million going to come from to finance this couple of lines in the ALP arts policy which say that the ABC now needs to meet local drama production requirements, just as the commercial networks need to do?

This legislation also talks about a topic quite close to me—that is, NetAlert. In estimates in the last few days we saw the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, doing a great jawboning down of NetAlert as a program, as a process, as a way of equipping Australian families with tools to help them manage their family’s interaction and access to the internet. Senator Conroy was decrying the take-up rate of NetAlert and the utilisation of the software funded through it. It seemed to be a reverse argument for his poorly conceived clean-feed idea. I do not know too many people who think that is a clever idea, given the dynamism in the internet world and how URLs can change quickly and you can get around some of the clean-feed devices. It emphasises the need for parental supervision—that it is key, supported by tools that help them manage a range of different people in a household using the one unit. Also, ISPs can offer value-added services such as making devices, technology and software part of the service. If parents want to go to whitelisting services and then shape access to those sites designed and specifically selected to be suitable for children of different ages, that would be fine too, but that is a collaborative approach where the parents are at the core of it.

It worries me greatly that the Labor Party’s clean-feed proposal, already ridiculed and shown to be ineffective in the UK, would deny whatever somebody—and this is yet to be determined—thinks is inappropriate content. It would apply consistently right across all age groups and types of computer users, regardless of their circumstances, and we have already seen that it does not have too many fans. So what does Senator Conroy do? He does not address this issue but tries to run down NetAlert. There is further evidence of it in these bills. He is complaining that the take-up rate of NetAlert is not what it should be and, therefore, justifies ending the program.

When you look at these bills, you see that Senator Conroy has sucked out the budget set aside for NetAlert—to communicate its availability, its potential benefits for households, the way in which families can interact with it and update protections in any way they see fit—to stop public education of the communications campaign. What a cunning plan, Senator Conroy. If you want to make sure no-one takes something up, do not tell them about it and, therefore, just suck the very budget out of something designed to inform the Australian public not only about the risks but also about some of the tools and assistance that are available to help people manage their family access to the internet. These are the things in these budget papers that people are less keen to talk about.

Then there is the work around BroadbandNow, which tries to help communities that may be wanting to access broadband services to interact with those providing services and make sure they know what is available at their premises. That consumer help centre with its telephone and web information was a great tool. That BroadbandNow program was an ally to broadband users to access the kinds of services that they were angling for. That is going as well. Is the Labor Party simply setting up these programs to fail to justify its confused, poorly thought through, almost foundering at the first rock proposals for activity in this area? It is something that needs closer examination.

I would also like to touch on a couple of budget issues that are very relevant to my electorate of Dunkley. During the election campaign we put forward a number of proposals for our community. Our local plan was very well endorsed. Our campaign put forward this local plan that took advantage of the momentum and opportunities being nurtured at a national level and translated them into very real and very practical outcomes for our local community. People came up to me and contrasted our campaign with the almost stealth like campaign from the ALP, which did not comment on any of the local issues and did not put forward any local plan—in fact, it simply traded on the cult of Kevin. The cult of Kevin was what was being perpetuated in the electorate. That was their campaign strategy choice, and that was a decision for the Labor Party. The local community did not seem to feature at all in that.

I think that campaign reminded people of what was said by the last Labor member for Dunkley, back before 1996. At the time of the last Labor federal government, the Labor member for Dunkley quite openly said that our community had been forgotten. There were so many outer metropolitan areas, particularly down in the south-east, that just did not seem to feature on the radar screen. It was an interesting confession by the former member. He is a very decent bloke—perhaps that is what led to that confession. I am pretty certain that it resonated with the local community. It certainly did not help his electoral prospects, but it was true. We are already starting to see that again here.

In appropriation bills Nos 3 and 4 there is no funding for the Frankston bypass. The former government made a commitment, if re-elected, to fund that in partnership with the states, because we have got EastLink dumping 25 per cent more traffic onto the Frankston Freeway—a freeway that is already clagged at the end where it intersects with the Frankston-Cranbourne Road—not to mention the extra traffic that is going to be drawn towards it as the area continues to develop. There is no mention of that—nothing.

Then there is the support for our local young people who may be gifted and skilled but who may not be academically engaged in the secondary school community. We reached out to them with a commitment to build a new Australian technical college. That was welcomed with great enthusiasm in the local area as a real priority. In the secondary school where I was a former school council president, Monterey, these were the kinds of initiatives that we were dreaming of just to engage young people who might not necessarily have seen the link between the academic course of study they were exposed to and their future life prospects. These talented young people have skills and a promise for a bright future. We were aiming to give life to that. Young people are looking to pursue a pathway at a technical college designed for year 11 and 12 students and commence their trade qualifications and get a grounding in business management and those workplace competencies that employers are looking for. Employers are telling me that they cannot recruit anybody. This was a very sound and responsive local initiative and there was nothing but silence from the ALP. Sadly, you see none of these things embraced in these appropriation bills.

There has been wonderful progress with the CCTV network in Mornington and a good early start in Frankston. There have been a number of commitments tackling not only hot spots around the taxi rank and linking the railway precinct with the entertainment precinct on the Nepean Highway but also the foreshore and some additional areas, including the Seaford station, where many commuters park their vehicles. The rollout of this technology was extremely well received. These are issues that are not in these appropriation bills. These matters were embraced and valued by the local community. These are things that I think the new government should take into account. I would hate to see our community forgotten again because we have now got another Labor government. (Time expired)

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