Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The previous government, the Howard government, left the Australian economy in tiptop shape. Any reasonable assessment by any independent analysis, particularly one devoid of the commentary that goes along with Labor’s spin machine, will understand that the Australian economy inherited by this government was in tiptop shape. Surplus budgets are now the norm. When we came to government in 1996 they were unheard of. Surplus budgets are now the norm. You can have a surplus in this budget because of the surplus budgets that went before.

It is amazing, when sitting in the chamber each day we are there, to hear the chest beating of the government as it talks about the heroic effort it has made in achieving this surplus, when surplus budgets were something that the coalition made standard practice in Australian fiscal policy—unlike the previous Labor government. Debt was repaid and we had a Future Fund and a Higher Education Endowment Fund—$60 billion invested back into the future of this country. That was the product of responsible fiscal policy. Now this government shows up and beats its chest about the surplus which it had no role in creating. I also note tax cuts became a norm in this country as a result of the previous government. The tax cuts which were delivered in this budget, which I will touch on later, were a straight carbon copy of those offered by the member for Higgins, the former Treasurer.

This budget is a higher spending, higher taxing budget that will deliver, by its own admission, higher unemployment. Higher spending, higher taxing and higher unemployment is what I would call an old Labor recipe for running the Australian economy. That is what we are seeing in this first Labor budget of the Rudd years—and may they be short. It shows that they are all hype when it comes to responsible economic management, particularly when it comes to fighting inflation. Basically, what we have here is $19 billion in new taxes and $30 billion in new spending. They are the key statistics of this budget. But the other key statistic in this budget is 134,000 people who will not be in work, as a result of this government’s management, within the next 12 months and to 30 June of the next fiscal year.

When it comes to fighting inflation, this budget really is an absolute fizzer. As Paul Keating used to say, ‘It is all tip and no iceberg’. What we see with the government when it comes to fighting inflation is a five-point plan and lots of slogans, and they probably have a wristband to go with it as well. But at the end of the day, what we do not see in their five-point plan is anything to do with wage pressures. Since this government was elected, what has happened as to unions’ expectations is that inflation has risen from three per cent to four per cent. The latest edition of the Reserve Bank Bulletin showed that, since this government has come to office, the expectations of prices and the expectations of increases in prices by union officials have been going up. That is no surprise because the government has been talking it all up.

The opposition understands the challenges of fighting inflation. We understand the challenges of repaying debt. We understand the challenges of responsible economic management. It is not a flyer for us; it is not an advertisement. It is something that we believe in. I remember the member for Higgins used to say that if you are thinking about being an economic conservative you are thinking about becoming very focused on responsible economic management. The local branch of the Labor Party was not the place you would turn up to. It is not the first cab off the rank you would take in order to fulfil your dreams and aspirations of being an economic conservative.

When it comes to fighting inflation this budget is a real fizzer because it does not address one of the fundamental issues that drive inflation—that is, wage pressures. The big difference between what we have seen with the resources boom in recent years and what happened in the early seventies is that in the most recent years we have had a flexible labour market. In the seventies, we did not. As a result, inflation went through the roof. Without a flexible labour market going forward, this government has no plan for fighting inflation. It only has a plan for paying off its Labor mates in the unions who spent $30 million to put them here.

With those comments more generally, Madam Deputy Speaker Vale, I want to talk about a few local things, which I am sure you would have a very keen interest in, in the Sutherland shire. In the Sutherland shire this budget has not been well received. As I have stood at street stalls and in shopping centres on the weekends we have been not in this place, there have been people coming up to me time and again, raising the issues of concerns of people on fixed incomes—as we heard the member for Dobell talk about. People on fixed incomes are not as happy as the Treasurer might suggest. People on fixed incomes, people who are carers, people looking after people who have disabilities as well—these are not happy people as a result of this budget because they have been completely missed out.

What was established in the budget was a $20 billion building fund. The government like to talk about the fact that they have created a surplus, but what they have actually done is create a massive billion dollar slush fund which they are going to spend. They are not putting money away, as the coalition did, into an investment fund where you spend the earnings. They are blowing the capital. They are going to blow the lot. With the Higher Education Endowment Fund, they took all of that $6 billion, took a bit more of the surplus, put it into this fund and they are going to spend the lot. No endowment fund, no future earnings; they are going to raid the cookie tin and go crazy with it.

If they are going to spend $20 billion on infrastructure, maybe there are some projects they might want to spend some money on rather than just handing over money to Morris Iemma to cover his shortfall on a whole range of already announced projects in New South Wales. He is the last person I would be giving money to in all the state governments. I would strongly support every state government other than the New South Wales government. I would prefer to write a cheque to the Western Australian state government, or even the Victorian state government, but the last state government I would write a cheque to at the moment, in terms of their ability to manage infrastructure funds, is the New South Wales state government. But, if the money is going to be spent, let us make sure it is spent on projects that can actually make a difference.

In the Sutherland shire, the most pressing road need, which has been on the agenda since 1951, is the upgrade of the F6 and the building of the F6 extension. I do not hold out a lot of hope that Labor will reverse decades of neglect and of ignoring this, particularly at a state level, but it is a project that Infrastructure Australia should be looking at and ensuring as part of their audit, and it should have a bullet on it. It should have an absolute flag against it as a critical infrastructure project for Sydney. This is a road extension which links the booming Illawarra with Sydney. There is an absolute missing link between Sydney and ports like Sydney airport, Port Botany and Port Kembla and the distribution network of Western Sydney.

At the moment, trucks roll up from the Illawarra—and there will be many more of these trucks as Port Kembla expands—through the Sutherland shire, going down suburban streets. These are suburban streets where there are ordinary family homes, where once upon a time kids used to play footy on the nature strip. Madam Deputy Speaker, remember those times when they did that. But they cannot do it now because the trucks are rolling down these streets. We need to get trucks off those streets and the heavy traffic off local suburban streets in the Sutherland shire, and the F6 extension is the way to do that. For 57 years, Labor had the perfect opportunity to make good on its infrastructure promises, and we have not seen it happen, particularly at a state government level, when it comes to the F6. We really need to see this on the boards as soon as humanly possible.

The NRMA recently undertook a study on the F6 extension. The report indicated that there would be economic flow-ons arising from the construction of this project that would not just be confined to the local region but be shared throughout New South Wales and Australia. The report shows that more than 1,000 jobs—that will at least make up for 1,000 of the 134,000 jobs that are going to go as a result of this government’s budget—will be created directly as a consequence of undertaking the project—that is, at least 1,000; in fact, more than 1,000—and the total of the project is worth $3.4 billion to our economy, at a cost of just $2.3 billion.

There is something interesting about that $2.3 billion figure. Basically, that is what it is costing to build Labor’s famous desalination plant at Kurnell—a desalination plant that we do not need, a desalination plant that we do not want, a desalination plant that was imposed on the people of the Sutherland shire, particularly at Kurnell, and broke the promise of the Premier made in March 2007 that it would only be built if dam levels hit 30 per cent. Well, dam levels never did hit 30 per cent. Dam levels are now over 65 per cent, and the building work goes on at Kurnell in the slush and in the mud, and often building work has to be delayed because it is washed out on the desalination site, which is an irony not lost on the residents of Kurnell.

Despite the benefits to the region and the Sutherland shire more specifically of the F6 extension, the state Labor member for Miranda maintains his opposition to this project while vehemently supporting the desalination plant that nobody wants or needs. If we were to have the choice—if there is $2.3 billion on the table, and there is: there is a $20 billion fund that has been created in this budget—between a desalination plant at Kurnell and building an F6 extension, I have no doubt what the people of the Sutherland shire would like. We would be bowled over in the rush to build the F6 extension. But they are not the priorities of the Labor Party. They are not the priorities of the federal government and the federal Labor Party. They are not the priorities of the state Labor Party. I will be very interested to see how much of that $20 billion slush fund is going to go to bail out the costs of not only the $2 billion plus they have to spend on the desalination plant but the $2 billion they have to spend on the wind farm to power the desalination plant. So we have a wind farm which could have been built to offset carbon emissions in New South Wales, but, no, now we have to go and spend $2 billion on a wind farm to power a desalination plant that we do not need, so it is up to $4 billion. And then, how are we going to get the water across the Sydney water network?

It was revealed fairly recently that once the pipeline goes across to the eastern suburbs of Sydney it needs to turn left; it needs to go to the Potts Hill reservoir. The problem is that the Potts Hill reservoir is uphill. The pipes that run from the Potts Hill reservoir are currently gravity feeding water to the rest of Sydney. For the water to turn left from the desalination plant, you have to pump it up. So we are going to have another pipeline—not only the one that destroys Botany Bay. We are going to have a pipeline making its way up to Potts Hill to capture water being generated by a desalination plant. Someone said to me, ‘But we already have a plan for water recycling in Sydney.’ The plan is to let it rush out to sea, suck it back in and then send it across Botany Bay to the eastern and inner western suburbs. The desalination project, which we will have more to say about in this place next week, is not necessary. It is an example of a project which has been perpetuated as a political con by the state Labor government, which I suspect will get its hands into the $20 billion building fund.

Another project which has been axed by this government in the budget is the Investing in Our Schools Program. Local schools, especially primary schools, will be hit hard by the abolition of our Investing in Our Schools Program, which, in my electorate of Cook, under the good stewardship of the former member for Cook, the Hon. Bruce Baird, was able to receive $3.7 million for equipment and facility upgrades. These funds were used for vital new equipment and facilities like classroom upgrades, new shelters, playgrounds, computer upgrades, redevelopment of sportsgrounds and rainwater tanks. Now the parents of children in Sutherland Shire schools are going to have to rely on Morris Iemma for these things. Heaven forbid. God help them, literally. We pray for them because, if they have to rely on the New South Wales state government, they will need prayer to ensure that they get the funding they need in their schools. Sutherland Shire will be sadly neglected, as it has been by the successive Labor governments at the New South Wales level.

Shire schools that benefited from the program included the Caringbah Public School, which received $150,000 for music and drama facilities; the Gymea Bay Public School, where similarly there was $150,000 for new walkways; Endeavour Sports High, which received $128,800 for a home economics-hospitality room, computer upgrades and sporting equipment; Laguna Street Public School, where there was $113,800 for computer upgrades; and in Bundeena there was over $100,000 for a new computer room. There are actually computers in schools. They were being delivered under the Investing in Our Schools Program—and not just for years 9 to 12 students. Kids aged 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 in Bundeena have a great new computer room, which I had the privilege to visit and open recently with the parents and citizens. They were delighted. They had never thought this was possible. If they had had to wait for the state government to do it, it would never have happened. And not just public schools received that support; $319,000 went to local non-government schools, to Our Lady Star of the Sea School at Miranda and St. Aloysius Primary School at Cronulla. This program was set up so that schools could get vital equipment and facilities when they need them rather than being forced onto endless waiting lists by greedy state governments.

The Prime Minister has thrown shire schools back on the mercy of an inept New South Wales Labor government that has failed students time and again. With the loss of the Investing in Our Schools Program, shire P&Cs will be forced to raise this money themselves. They cannot afford to wait. I have had a letter from the Lilli Pilli Public School. They wrote to me after this program was axed and said they had a range of needs to be met. These include covered walkways, new fencing for security, new playground equipment, covering for the playground areas. They have thrown up their hands and said, ‘How is this going to happen?’ They certainly were not getting any support from the state member for Miranda. They certainly were not getting any support from the state government on these issues—no comfort from them. They said, ‘Where are we going to get this money?’ The sad answer is that they are going to have to raise it themselves.

Under the Investing in Our Schools Program, those funds would have been provided to take the pressure off families. We talk a lot about working families in this place—at least those opposite do. But it is working families who actually sit on P&Cs, and they are the ones who are now going to have to hold extra raffles and fairs and dip into their pockets again and again to provide this sort of equipment in their schools. Of all the measures—and there are many to be upset about and not happy about, as the Treasurer would like us to be happy—this one I just do not get because it puts a burden back on parents and citizens who are trying to support their local schools. Those opposite should think long and hard about what they have done with this. They talk about education revolutions, but honestly the dropping of the Investing in Our Schools Program is an absolute disgrace.

Private health insurance is another measure. There are 92,272 people who live in my electorate of Cook, which is more than 70 per cent of the residents, who are covered by private health insurance. That is 25 percentage points higher than the national average. One of the reasons people in the shire are so supportive of private health insurance is that they understand the philosophy of taking responsibility for yourself. On the weekends, while not in this place, I have talked to older residents in the shire who came to me and said, ‘Look we have been investing in these schemes all of our lives. We want measures in place that encourage young people to do the same.’ But in one foul stroke, the government have removed that incentive and that element of the system which has seen private health insurance in this country grow and grow. The result of that measure will be quite simple. The result of the government’s measure on private health insurance will simply mean that, for those who decide to stay in the system, premiums will go up and, for those who decide not to go into the system, they will have the privilege of being let down by the state hospital system. They will have the privilege of joining those queues, and there are 59,000 people on those elective surgery waiting lists in New South Wales. So you either have to pay more through private health insurance or you have to wait longer in the public system. That is not what I call doing something about dealing with health issues in this country.

The tax cuts I mentioned were simply the tax cuts outlined by the member for Higgins prior to the election. They are the tax cuts outlined by the coalition. The coalition are the ones with the form on tax cuts. The only form of relief that people and families across Australia could find in the budget as they looked at it were those tax cuts—the architects of whom were not those who sit opposite. The architects were those who ran the previous responsible financial and economic management policy of the previous government—that is, John Howard and the member for Higgins. They were their tax cuts and, if they had never announced them, then we would never have been seeing tax cuts in this budget.

The government ran a campaign of deceit. That deceit is writ large in this budget. They paraded themselves around Australia promising to bring a change to grocery prices and fuel prices, and to ease the burden and all the other rhetoric they came up with from focus groups, which the minders wrote into the Prime Minister’s speeches as he moved around the country as the Leader of the Opposition. There was no mention of $19 billion in new taxes. There was no mention of means testing the baby bonus. There was no mention of dismantling private health insurance. There was no mention of U-turning on the Northern Territory intervention and allowing pornography into Aboriginal communities. There was no mention of those things. But there was one person who made mention that they would change things and we all know who that was. That was the member for Kingsford Smith, who said, ‘We will change it all.’

The government never really intended to follow through on any of these things, and that is the great deceit. The PM has now been found out. He has been exposed. He has made his bed on fuel and grocery prices, and he can lie on it. For people and families in the shire looking to service their mortgage, pay their grocery bills and put fuel in the car, there is no relief in this budget, save for the tax cuts Labor copied from Peter Costello, the member for Higgins, before the last election.

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