Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and the cognate bills before the House this evening, the passing of which will see the delivery of the first budget by the Rudd Labor government from Treasurer Wayne Swan. In doing so, I congratulate the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and indeed the entire Labor cabinet for delivering a very balanced and sensible budget that lays a solid foundation for the necessary investment in skills and infrastructure whilst maintaining downward pressure on interest rates and inflation. It is a budget that delivers these outcomes while ensuring that those most disadvantaged in our community are not left behind. I am proud to support a Labor budget that recognises the need to invest in an education system that will grow our economy by giving every member of this and future generations the chance to achieve and contribute to our society and participate in the workforce in a meaningful way.

This budget is not just for the current constituents of Bonner—and indeed the country—but for future constituents as well. First and foremost it is a budget that has kept faith with the Australian people. Every single election commitment, no matter how big or small, has been honoured, including a massive $46.7 billion in tax cuts over the next four years. The opposition tends to deride the government’s talk of a very clear focus on working families. Well, I can assure the opposition that in my electorate of Bonner there are many working families and they are doing it tough. The cost of living has risen dramatically of recent times and I do not need to detail the impact that petrol prices and rising interest rates have had on those families trying to cover basic household costs and provide an education for their children.

The cost of housing alone has risen dramatically and is now an unacceptably high percentage of many household budgets. In the electorate of Bonner, at roughly 27.2 per cent of addresses people are renting while 36.8 per cent are homes that are currently being purchased. That is why I am very pleased that the government has announced the Housing Affordability Fund. It is a fund that will see the government invest $500 million to lower the cost of building new homes, by working with all levels of government, particularly local government, to reform infrastructure and planning requirements. As a former Brisbane city councillor, I think it is wonderful to hear of a federal government that is actually prepared to support local government in delivering this very important infrastructure in an affordable way to local residents. The Housing Affordability Fund will be available to local government, potentially in partnership with developers, or even to state and territory governments, for projects that will make a real difference to the cost of new homes.

Increasingly, though, it is first home buyers who are being shut out of the housing market. First home buyers now account for 18 per cent—or barely one in six—of all home purchasers, compared to 22 per cent in June of 1996. The first home mortgage has more than doubled in 10 years, from $104,000 in December 1997 to $231,000 in December 2007. The proportion of 18- to 34-year-olds buying their first home fell from 48 per cent to 44 per cent between 1994 and 2004. This is a real issue for many people, not just in my electorate but across the country.

To try to reverse these trends the government has committed $850 million to establish first home saver accounts. These new accounts will be up and running in the second half of this year. The accounts are the first of their kind in Australia—the biggest revolution in our savings culture since a Labor government introduced compulsory superannuation. The accounts will provide a simple, tax-effective way for Australians to save a meaningful deposit for the purchase of their first home.

Since the announcement of these new accounts the government has increased the benefits to low-income earners. The scheme has been extended to provide assistance to low-income earners through the provision of a minimum 15 per cent government contribution on after-tax contributions of up to $5,000 each year. A couple earning average incomes and putting aside 10 per cent of their incomes for their home could be able to save a deposit of $80,000, depending on returns. The accounts are also an important element of the government’s efforts to increase national savings—in fact, the estimate is that they will contribute around $4 billion to national savings within four years.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme is also very important to residents in my electorate. It is perhaps the most ambitious of the government’s new housing policy commitments. The scheme will provide an annual incentive to institutional investors to build new homes and rent them to low- and moderate-income earners at 20 per cent below market rates. The Australian government will provide institutional investors with an annual $6,000 refundable tax credit for new buildings. There will also be the capacity to provide this credit as a grant to non-taxable entities, so many operators in the community housing sector will also be able to deliver affordable rental housing to people in the communities that they serve. In fact, in the first five years the government aims to bring 50,000 properties on board and, if it is successful, will expand the scheme to 100,000 properties over the following five years—a major new investment in Australia’s affordable housing stock. The scheme will not just be another form of welfare housing. Rather, it will provide affordable accommodation for lower income singles and families in the workforce. Many of those people employed in service industries who simply cannot find affordable rents in the town or the city that they are living in will now be able to do so.

But, of course, we cannot talk about housing affordability without looking at those most vulnerable—those who are currently homeless and living rough. The government has developed the A Place to Call Home strategy, which will see $150 million funded in this budget to build 600 new homes for the homeless across the nation over the next five years. The A Place to Call Home strategy will see homeless families and individuals moved directly into these homes instead of going into refuges. They will also receive tenancy and other support for the first 12 months. Those placed in the new housing will not have to leave at the end of the support period. The homes will be transferred to the general public housing pool and their tenancy extended in accordance with normal arrangements for public housing. A Place to Call Home is an immediate response to tackle homelessness and successfully reintegrate people into the broader community, and it will stop them from cycling in and out of homelessness services—a feature that is very common for those sleeping rough today.

Today’s capital funding will help to ensure that homeless individuals and families get the support they need to permanently break the cycle of homelessness and allow them an opportunity to establish a place they call home. I particularly support the initiative where people—families in particular—will be able to move straight into a house rather than going through the often disruptive and very stressful period of being in a refuge, particularly for women with small children. It is pleasing to see that Queensland will actually receive 35.7 per cent of this funding. Indeed, that will see 143 new homes.

It is also a reality out there that there are many families where both parents work because they have to or because they choose to. The right for women to pursue a career and participate in the workforce has been hard fought over many years. The opportunity for many women to work and raise a family is recognised as a basic right in our modern society. The only impediment is the need for parents to have access to good quality and affordable child care. That is why I am very pleased to support the government’s initiative in this budget to increase the childcare rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent for all working families. No parent can confidently participate in the workforce if they are worried or uneasy about the care their children are receiving, and as a mother of three I know that feeling only too well.

I am also well aware of many women in the electorate of Bonner who face a very real dilemma regarding their financial future. Due to rising interest rates, they are faced with higher mortgage payments, necessitating a second income in the household, but for many the cost of child care is a prohibitive factor in them returning to work. Increasing the childcare tax rebate to 50 per cent and increasing the maximum amount of rebate to $7,500 will be the difference between many families living below or above the poverty line. It enables many women to return to the workforce, which of course will mean not only more financial security for them and their families but also a significant benefit to the current skills crisis. Families win, children win, women win and the economy wins. This rebate, in conjunction with the expansion of the civil penalties scheme to ensure greater compliance, will mean that child care is becoming more affordable and of better quality than at any time in the last 12 years.

While this budget brings much needed relief to many current households, it does not do so at the expense of future investment for the children of those working families that we are trying to assist. Funds are provided to ensure the implementation of the government’s education revolution. I have been visiting my local schools regularly since the election and I am overwhelmed by the enthusiasm that abounds for the computers in schools program and the rollout of trade training centres. There is a genuine and general willingness by each school community to work in partnership with the government to deliver these vital new initiatives in a way that will be most beneficial to each of their students.

Of course, education infrastructure does not stop here. I am particularly pleased that the $500,000 promised to help build the Gumdale State School hall has been delivered in this budget. This facility will not only provide much needed equipment and services for one of the fastest growing primary schools—not just in the electorate of Bonner but in fact in the city of Brisbane—but also provide very important community facilities, equipment and much needed space, enabling local community organisations to also deliver services in this local area. Given that it services the suburb of Wakerley—and we have seen nearly 4,000 new residents move into this suburb alone in the last four years—this multipurpose hall will be a really great boost to this very close-knit and growing community.

As we also know, education does not stop when the bell rings at three o’clock, and that is why I am very pleased that the government has honoured its commitment to introduce an education tax refund to assist families in providing the necessary technology at home that many students require to achieve. The government will introduce a new 50 per cent education tax refund from 1 July 2008 at a cost of around $4.4 billion over the next four years. So those parents who are entitled to family tax benefit part A or whose schoolchildren receive youth allowance or a similar payment will be able to claim a 50 per cent tax refund of up to $750 for each child undertaking primary school studies and a 50 per cent tax refund of up to $1,500 in education expenses for each student undertaking secondary school studies. Parents can simply claim the refund against eligible expenses incurred from 1 July 2008 when they complete their 2008-09 income tax return.

The government will also roll out universal access to early learning for all four-year-olds by 2013. The government will fund 15 hours per week for 40 weeks per year of play based learning and development programs. We all know how important it is to instil a love of learning and build an appreciation for education at that very young age if we want our children to succeed through primary school, secondary school and, indeed, tertiary education. That is why I am sure that the 11,377 primary students and 7,698 secondary students in Bonner will be very pleased to benefit from this refund.

While this budget has delivered on these important initiatives, I am also pleased that we finally have a federal government that is also prepared to invest, in Brisbane in particular, in the hard infrastructure necessary to ease traffic congestion and provide support to industry. The construction of the Gateway Motorway missing links will mean that Queensland motorists will have a first-class arterial road linking the Pacific Motorway to the Bruce Highway. The $10 million investment, to be matched by $10 million from the Bligh government, will allow planning work to start on the 12½-kilometre section from Nudgee Road to the Bruce Highway and the 4½-kilometre section from Mount Gravatt-Capalaba Road to the Pacific Motorway, a significant stretch of road in the electorate of Bonner. From 2009-10, an additional $195 million will be invested in preconstruction funding for these links under the AusLink 2 investment program.

The Queensland government is currently investing $1.9 billion to upgrade the Gateway Motorway to six and eight lanes. Anyone who at any time of day has sat in the traffic snarls on the Gateway Motorway knows just how important this duplication is. There are already up to 70,000 motorists using these sections of road every day and, if we do nothing, by 2012 over 94,000 commuters will be sitting in daily traffic jams. That means that urban congestion, if we do nothing, will cost families and businesses in Brisbane $3 billion a year by 2020, simply because many working parents are spending more time in their cars—which of course means that they have less time at home with their kids. The completion of the Gateway duplication will make a real difference, particularly to quality of life for all Bonner residents. It is the key missing link which, when built, will enable future investment in easing congestion on the road network that depends on the smooth running of this motorway.

I am proud to support these appropriation bills that will deliver a budget that brings economic and social benefits to all Australians. It is just the beginning and we know that there is more to be done, but it is a solid beginning and it lays the foundation for the Rudd Labor government to continue to create a fairer, more inclusive and more productive Australia.

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