Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I listened to the member for Farrer’s comments with interest, and, whilst I certainly do not intend to respond to all of her comments in detail, I do want to pick up one of the points she made, and that was in respect of Australia’s water supplies and the shortage of water that we are experiencing throughout Australia. It is a fact, and it is a point that I think is well understood by people right across Australia and by governments right across Australia. But the cold, hard reality is that our serious situation with water did not occur overnight or since the Rudd government came to power; it occurred as a result of neglect by governments for decades and, in particular, neglect on the part of the previous Howard government. In the last 10 years in particular there were some very real warnings put to the government about the water crisis that this country was facing and we saw very, very little response from the previous government. I have spoken on another occasion about water and the need for Australia to have a better water plan.

The point I also want to make is that, in this budget, there is in fact $12.9 billion set aside by the Rudd government to respond to the serious water shortages that this country is facing. Might I say of the minister, Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, that she is doing a very good job in that new portfolio, given the seriousness and the size of the problem that she has inherited. I believe that the commitments she has made and the decisions that she has made to date certainly show that she is someone who is committed to finding real, long-term solutions to the water needs of this country.

In his budget address to parliament on 13 May, the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, began his remarks with the following:

This Budget is designed to meet the big challenges of the future.

It is a Budget that strengthens Australia’s economic foundations, and delivers for working families under pressure.

It is the responsible Budget our nation needs at this time of international turbulence, and high inflation at home.

A Budget carefully designed to fight inflation, and ensure we meet the uncertainties of the future from a position of strength.

The first Rudd government budget is indeed a budget which responds to the complex social, economic and environmental issues facing Australia—complex issues made even more difficult because of the previous government’s failure to address the future needs of our nation. This is the first Labor government budget in 12 years, and Australia today is a vastly different country to the one it was 12 years ago—as indeed is the world. In my first speech in this place I said that those countries which invest in education, manage their environment well and minimise global influences on their economies will prosper most into the future. I also said that governments need to win back the trust and faith of the people they serve.

In the time I have today, I will speak about how the first Rudd government budget responds to some of these issues, and I begin with the question of trust. Governments will win back the trust of people they serve only if they deliver on the commitments they make. The first Rudd budget does exactly that. Funding commitments made in the election campaign by the Rudd government have all been delivered in this budget. This is unlike the record of the Howard government when, after elections, promises became core and non-core promises. In my own electorate of Makin in particular, every single funding commitment made by the Rudd government or by me has been delivered in this budget. Those projects include a new GP superclinic, $750,000 for the Tea Tree Gully Business Enterprise Centre, $500,000 to improve television reception along the Para Escarpment, $150,000 to the cities of Salisbury and Tea Tree Gully for Safer Communities funding, and $2.675 million for improvements to a range of community facilities.

I also welcome the announcement by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, that 86 community organisations around Australia who were promised funding by the previous Howard government—but to whom the funding was never delivered because the Howard government did not sign off on the necessary government contracts with these clubs—now have until 31 July to finalise their funding agreement with the federal government. Two of these clubs are in my electorate of Makin. I refer to the Golden Grove Football Club, whose facilities at Harpers Field are totally inadequate, and the sporting clubs at Tilley Reserve, Golden Grove, which include a junior soccer club, a Little Athletics club, a tennis club and a table tennis club. These clubs have collectively outgrown their facilities at Tilley Reserve and they have been waiting for years for improvements to their facilities. I have visited these two facilities and met on numerous occasions with both club officials and parents of the children who use the facilities, and I have seen for myself how inadequate the facilities are.

The families and the children of these communities should not be victims of a Regional Partnerships funding mess created by the Howard government, criticised by the Auditor-General and inherited by the Rudd government. I discussed the importance of the funding required by the Golden Grove Football Club and Tilley Reserve sports clubs with both the minister, the Hon. Anthony Albanese, and Parliamentary Secretary Gary Gray on several occasions. I thank both of them for their sympathetic response to the needs of the many families in Makin. I hope to speak at length on another occasion about the wonderful role of the sporting clubs throughout our communities—not just in Makin but right across Australia.

Let me now turn to education. Education means knowledge, and knowledge empowers people to make sound decisions about their own future and sound judgements about the policies of the governments that they elect. Education is also the most effective way of overcoming social disadvantage. From the outset, the Prime Minister made education a priority for a Rudd government. In the first Rudd government budget, the government has delivered on its commitment to education with a combination of sensible policies and $19.3 billion of funding.

I was particularly pleased to see that these policies recognise the importance of early childhood education and the foundation that it builds for the rest of the lives of these young people. Again, I was particularly pleased to hear the Deputy Prime Minister in question time today speak about the $535 million over five years for early childhood education.

The wasteful, politically motivated expenditure by the Howard government in detaining refugees offshore, estimated to have cost Australian taxpayers over $1 billion, would have been much better spent on our schools, our TAFEs and our universities. If it had been, today we might not be facing critical skills shortages in our trades and in our professions, shortages which are in turn causing serious workforce shortages, and the number of full-time or part-time students continuing from year 10 to year 12 would not be down to the 1999 level of 79.2 per cent. These statistics are a sad indictment of the last Liberal government.

Shortly before I stepped down as Mayor of Salisbury, we established the Northern Economic Leaders Group to work with government in overcoming the barriers to productivity growth in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. The Northern Economic Leaders Group is made up of CEOs of significant national industries from a broad cross-section of employment sectors, including BAE Systems, Inghams Enterprises and RM Williams. The single dominant, common concern raised by all of those CEOs was the workforce shortages and their difficulty in recruiting suitably trained staff. Their dilemma, which I am sure applies equally to industries across Australia, will not be resolved overnight, but the education commitments made in the first Rudd government’s budget, and the immigration changes announced by Senator Chris Evans, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, are an important step in the right direction. The allocation in this budget of $19.3 billion for education, skills and training, with $11 billion of it in the form of a new education investment fund, demonstrates a real commitment by the Rudd government to addressing the future education, skilling and training needs of Australia.

Let me now turn to the environment for a moment. The failure of the Howard government to properly address the national impacts of climate change has already cost our country dearly and will continue to do so on a compounding scale for many years to come. In my first speech in this place I referred to the Murray River as an example and highlighted the social, economic and environmental costs to Australia as a result of both the mismanagement of the Murray-Darling system and the failure to factor in climate change to our water supplies and water flows into the Murray itself.

Today I want to refer to another example—that is, the price of petrol, LPG and diesel. The simple reality is that world demand for fuel is driving up fuel prices and will continue to do so. At the same time it is well known that the use of fossil fuels have, for a long time, been a major cause of greenhouse gas pollution. Had Australia begun addressing petrol as an environmental issue a decade ago, we might have been better prepared and less dependent on petrol today and therefore not so much impacted by rising petrol prices. It is not only the price of petrol that needs to come down; it is as much our reliance on it. Oil is a finite resource and many experts believe we have reached our peak oil supplies—another warning that the Howard government seemed oblivious to.

It is imperative that Australia invest more in public transport systems. Increased use of public transport will reduce household reliance on motor vehicles, thereby reducing living costs and environmental damage. With respect to this point, I want to read a letter that was published in the Adelaide Advertiser last Friday from a person by the name of Anne McMenamin. I am going to read the letter almost exactly as it appeared in the paper:

The real issue is that the price of oil is going to continue to rise. Many mainstream commentators predict $150 a barrel by the end of 2008, and some up to $200. It’s already 30 per cent higher than at the beginning of the year, and six times what it was 10 years ago.

The situation has been predicted for many years. Earth does not have an infinite supply of oil.

What we need from our governments—state and federal—is leadership, including a preparedness to take steps which will not be universally popular.

These have to involve huge expenditure on public transport, major intervention in and regulation of urban consolidation, and overhaul of food production systems heavily dependent on the input of both oil and petrochemical products.

Inevitably, money will still need to be spent on present systems, so there will be a period of overlapping financial demands. This will require some national pulling together and readjustment of priorities, in which governments need to protect and support the more vulnerable sectors of the community.

Changes to excise and/or the GST may be useful in this, but they are not fixes for the central problems.

One comforting thought in all this: changes made to accommodate the demands of peak oil will all help in the battle against global warming.

The two are not unrelated.

I could not have put it better myself if I tried. I think that letter sums up the situation perfectly.

On an associated matter, Australia’s continued high dependence on petrol raises a secondary cause for concern. Our diminishing petrol reserves mean an increasing dependency on imported petrol. That in turn means a worsening position with respect to our balance of trade. In fact, if the present trends continue, within the next five to 10 years our net foreign debt—which, as at 31 December 2007, was $610 billion or 60 per cent of Australia’s $1 trillion economy—will most likely exceed Australia’s GDP; that is, our net foreign debt, if we continue on the trend we are following right now, will exceed our total national GDP. That is certainly a cause for concern, and that will be the case if both petrol consumption and petrol imports continue to increase. For the sake of both our environment and our economy, we have to reduce our reliance on petrol. Might I say that LPG and compressed natural gas may not be the best long-term fuel solutions but in the short term both are far better options than petrol, given the abundant supplies of LPG and compressed natural gas in Australia and their lower greenhouse gas emissions. In this respect, I endorse the comments made by the member for Wills on this subject about a week ago.

Neither the pretentious concern about fuel prices by the opposition nor their excise rebate proposal will bring much joy to motorists. Investment in transport infrastructure and public transport systems will go much further in reducing petrol costs for motorists than a 5c petrol excise cut. That is why I support and welcome the $20 billion commitment in this budget to the Building Australia Fund, which represents the first major infrastructure investment plan in Australia for decades. It is these long-term solutions to spiralling petrol costs that Australia needs, and that is what differentiates the Rudd government from the opposition. I was going to speak further about climate change but, given the time available to me, I will simply make this point: the government’s $2.3 billion for tackling climate change shows a real commitment to addressing the issues that we as a nation and as a globe face in the years ahead. How those funds will be spent is broken down in the budget documents. I endorse and support the government’s initiatives in that respect.

I will finish by saying that, of course, there is so much more to do. This budget does not by any means do all of the things that we as a government would like to do. In my own electorate of Makin I frequently speak to pensioners and people with family members who have a disability. Might I at this point talk about the $1.9 billion that was only last Friday agreed between the federal and state governments to respond to some of those people’s needs. I speak to carers, people with mental health problems, Indigenous people, single parents, people suffering from work related injuries, war veterans and so on. I understand their needs and I understand that there are things that governments at all levels could do to assist them. I also understand that in many cases these people are severely disadvantaged and suffering real hardship. This budget, however, begins the process of building an Australia in which all members of our society can share in the nation’s prosperity and those who are struggling the most are not simply given short-term, once-only handouts but a real opportunity to have a better quality of life. It is a nation-building budget, and I commend and support the appropriation bills put to this parliament by the Treasurer.

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