Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I endorse some of the comments made by the member for Mackellar, particularly in relation to the veteran community. I know it is not part of the Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Other Legislation Amendment (2008 Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2008, but an anomaly that should be addressed and hopefully will be addressed by the new government is the provision of the gold card to veterans of the Second World War who did not have the appropriate ‘qualifying service’—as it is deemed in the legislation. That is one of the great disgraces that this parliament has presided over. I understand those veterans are dying at the rate of something like 800 a month.

In many cases it has been disturbing to them that, even though many of them would have trained and served as members of our military services during the five years of that particular conflict, the fact that they were not sent to an area where an angry shot was fired has meant that they are being treated as second-class citizens in the latter part of their lives when they need, in my view, special medical treatment. Particularly in recent years when the government has had fairly substantial surpluses, the rhetoric on all sides of parliament has seemed to reside in concern for our troops overseas and how we have to encourage them and look after them et cetera. Yet we have this fairly blatant abuse of older veterans who were doing only what their country asked of them. If the leaders of their country had asked them to go overseas they would have, but they were asked to stay here.

Take, for instance, my father’s case—and this would have occurred in a lot of cases. He served in the Middle East. If the Japanese had broken through in New Guinea, he would have been a fat lot of good in defending my family because he was in the Middle East looking after someone else’s family. If history had taken a left turn, those who were here, who now are being treated as second-class citizens in terms of access to the gold card, would have been the real defenders of the nation. Excuse the latitude I am taking, but it is something we should take up.

My main reason for speaking to this piece of legislation is this abominable policy called the ‘baby bonus’. On day one, when Treasurer Costello brought this piece of legislation to the parliament with the guise that somehow there was falling fertility and that a few thousand dollars would in fact cure the problem, the statement he made—and I know it was half in jest, but he resided on it for a long time—about having one for dad, one for mum and one for the nation sent a dreadful message, particularly to young people. I was hopeful when this government was in the election phase and was concerned about inflation that it would have thrown this abominable piece of legislation out. I will not be supporting the amendment. In fact, I do not support the whole concept of paying people to conceive and giving them a few dollars. Then, as some of the speakers have said this morning, you have to run a good economic agenda to provide the services that the public will demand when we are paying people to have children who may not, in some cases, have the capacity to have children. If we are going to start to develop a nation where the state will pay for everything, we really do have to consider some of our options in these vote-grabbing programs such as the baby bonus.

One of the Liberal Party speakers who spoke a moment ago raised the high cost of living in Sydney and referred to ‘Rudd’s rich’ as being those people who receive over $150,000 income. To suggest that a family with that sort of income would require a payment to conceive a child I think is offensive.

There is absolutely no doubt that there are many people who are more attracted to the cash than the care of their young people. When these arguments are put out that we need money, we need to run a good economic agenda so that we can provide services to those in our community less fortunate than ourselves. Many of those less fortunate are going to be conceived for this ill-conceived $5,000 payment for sex—a payment to conceive a child for the nation. I happen to think that parenthood is a bit bigger than that. If people need to be encouraged by cash to have a child, they should not be having a child in the first place. I would urge the government to look at this policy in the future. There is no substantive evidence that suggests that it is doing anything to the fertility rate anyway. We have spent over $4 billion on this thing—$4 billion on a crazy piece of policy. The former Treasurer, Peter Costello, said that this was going to have an impact, that it was going to increase the fertility rate. I think the new government needs to keep an eye on that and, if it is not doing it, get rid of it. Get rid of it because of the false premise on which it was set up. I think the more important issue is: what is happening to some of these children that are being conceived because of cash? What is happening to them? What are their circumstances?

I would like to read into Hansard some comments made in the Northern Daily Leader on 7 May 2008. This was prior to the budget. I as the local member suggested that the government should scrap the baby bonus. This was prior to the budget. The article says:

Tamworth Area Multiple Birth Association (TAMBA) president and mother of four, Jenny Taggart said while there was no doubt the $5000 bonus could help with expenses associated with the birth and care of a newborn, a blanket baby bonus often did not meet the needs of the community.

“A one off payment of $5000 at the birth of a child neglects to take into account that the child will be under their parents’ care until they are a teenager, or longer,” she said.

At the very least means-testing—

and she is supporting what the current government is doing, in this sense, I guess—

would be a step in the right direction—but the administration costs involved—

and this is part of what the opposition has been saying—

would probably render this option impractical.

That was the Tamworth Area Multiple Birth Association. The Tamworth Family Support Service—and we have all got these sorts of support services in our electorates; they are the people that pick up the pieces when things go wrong and people need help—said this:

Tamworth Family Support Service ... manager Belinda Kotris agreed the money would be better spent on new parent support services.

Ms Kotris supported Mr Windsor’s called to abolish the bonus.

“We are seeing parents that may otherwise not consider having children do so because of the financial incentive,” she said.

“As many parents would tell you it cost a lot more than $5000 to raise a child—but for some families that is more money than they would ever have seen in their lives.”

Ms Kotris said that the TFSS had heard of a number of cases where the Baby Bonus money had been spent on consumer items with nothing left over for the baby.

And when questioned, she said:

“Yes, this includes plasma TVs.”

Here is an important point, I think—the whole thing is an important point:

Given it costs $260 for a young girl to travel to Newcastle for an abortion as against $5000 bonus for having the baby it was not surprising that there had been an increase in teenage pregnancies, Ms Kotris said.

The cost of a termination is not reimbursed by Medicare.

I think there are a number of interesting points in what we are actually doing with this particular bonus and the messages we are sending to young people—the messages that seem to be swinging across this chamber in recent months as well. We hear the message from time to time that the world is overpopulated. Some people even suggest that because of the way the Murray-Darling system is now Australia is overpopulated—that is, we are putting pressure on our resources. Some are suggesting that we have got to do something about our carbon emissions because of the way in which an overpopulated world is impacting on itself. Some are suggesting that we have to double food production—that we have to suddenly open up the north of Australia so that we can feed others in other parts of the world who cannot feed themselves. So there is this range of mixed messages, and this absurd piece of populism crept into this parliament, where we pay people to have babies.

I am not opposed to helping caring parents and assisting them in a range of areas, but this is not the way. It encourages some who do not particularly care about parenthood, who have not really thought about it but who can see a sum of money—a quite large sum of money; in this case, $5,000—on offer. If we are serious about sending messages—and we had a debate yesterday and last night about partners and parents and gays and others—about the morals of social policy, we should address what I would say is an immoral piece of social policy. It was based on a false premise in the first place and is actually being abused by some people in our community.

I know the government has moved in some cases to make the payments weekly or monthly so that the total amount cannot be spent down the pub or on the poker machines at the local club, but there are an enormous number of people out there as well—and we all know them; we see them in our electorates—who are not under that regime at the moment. To enter that weekly or monthly arrangement they have to have been assessed under certain criteria, which might be in relation to drug taking or previous misdemeanours within the community. I oppose the baby bonus totally. I will not be supporting the opposition’s amendment on this means testing arrangement. I think the precedent we would be setting by suggesting that people earning over $150,000 should be paid to conceive another child is a disgraceful one and should be removed from the policy pages.

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