Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to offer my strong support for the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Economic Security Strategy) Bill 2008, the Appropriation (Economic Security Strategy) Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009 and the Appropriation (Economic Security Strategy) Bill (No. 2) 2008-2009. In order to strengthen the national economy and support Australian households the appropriation bills seek authority for the additional expenditure of money from the consolidated revenue fund. The social security and other legislation amendment bill amends various laws to provide payments to pensioners, seniors, people with disabilities, carers, veterans and families with dependent children. These payments will provide immediate financial support during the global financial crisis.

On 14 October the Prime Minister and the Treasurer announced a $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy to deal with the challenges of the global financial crisis, to support continual positive growth in the Australian economy and to provide practical support for households. The Prime Minister took decisive and early action to protect the Australian economy from the global financial crisis which started in the United States and has rapidly spread throughout the world. The Rudd government prepared well ahead for this set of circumstances by ensuring in the May budget a strong buffer for us for the future. Globally, around 30 banks have failed or been bailed out, with nearly every country in the G7 having recorded negative growth. The downturn is not just confined to the developed economies, with the latest IMF and World Bank information indicating developing economies will also be acutely impacted.

The Australian economy remains sound but we are not immune to the global slowdown and the real possibility of a global recession. There are no easy solutions or quick fixes to the global financial crisis. This is going to be a long, drawn-out crisis which will have a real impact on Australia, leading to slowing economic growth and increased unemployment. That is why the Rudd government is taking decisive and early action to protect the economy and all Australians from this crisis. The ESS will stimulate economic activity and protect vulnerable groups in our society, especially the thousands of pensioners, carers, disabled people and low-income families. This strategy builds on the decision already taken by the government to guarantee the bank deposits of all Australians. This strategy addresses the challenges we face in five key areas.

The first measure is for Australia’s four million pensioners, carers and seniors, who will share in a $4.8 billion immediate down payment on long-term pension reform. The first $4 billion of this will be made available through direct payments of $1,400 to single pensioners and $2,100 to pensioner couples. Australians who are receiving the carers allowance will receive $1,000 for each eligible person they care for. As I have said, these direct payments are a down payment on longer term pension reform while we wait to see the recommendations from the Harmer committee of inquiry. These payments will provide additional financial support in the months between now and the middle of next year. In Solomon we have almost 5,000 pensioners, carers and seniors who have been doing it pretty tough, and I have felt their pain when they have told me about having to cut back on things like food, medicine and trips to the shops. Over the past couple of weeks I have met with pensioners and carers in Darwin and in Palmerston, as well as the President of the Council on the Ageing in the Northern Territory. The feedback I have received regarding this direct payment has been outstanding. It will definitely relieve some of the financial pain our seniors and our carers have been feeling.

The second measure is a $3.9 billion payment that supports low- and middle-income families. The Rudd Labor government will provide a $1,000 payment for each eligible child in their care—that is, for whom they currently receive support through family tax benefit A—and for dependent children who receive youth allowance, ABSTUDY or benefits from the Veterans’ Children Education Scheme payments. That means the families of about 3.8 million Australian children will be eligible for a $1,000 one-off payment. These payments will be made from 8 December this year. These payments are going to those in our community who really need it. In my seat of Solomon that means this payment will benefit over 16,000 kids and over 8,000 families.

I spoke to some friends of mine recently about the payments they will receive. They are pretty typical of a lot of families I know in Darwin. These guys have a couple of kids and they both work hard, and when I asked them to describe their current financial situation they described it as working poor. They struggle with paying bills and the cost of day-to-day living expenses. They do without any luxuries and, like so many people I know, they live from pay packet to pay packet, week to week. I asked them what impact the government’s strategy payment would have for them and they simply said ‘massive’. For them, it will mean the difference between just going through the motions of Christmas and the New Year and being able to buy necessary items for the kids and the family home—things that would otherwise have been well and truly out of their reach. That means money will be spent at local shops around Darwin and Palmerston. I have spoken to some of the small business owners in Solomon and, like so many small businesses in rural and remote Australia, they are doing it tough. Their cash registers have not seen much money passing through them recently, and they are definitely looking forward to seeing their customer numbers increase, particularly over the Christmas period. These payments will mean an injection of cash that will stimulate economic activity.

The third measure is a $1.5 billion investment to help first home buyers purchase a home. Currently first home buyers are eligible for a $7,000 grant. After consultation with industry and others, the government decided to act decisively in the housing sector. Decisive action means that for the duration of 2008-09 the first home owners grant will be increased from $7,000 to $14,000. On top of that, first home buyers who purchase a newly constructed home will receive an extra $7,000 to take that grant to $21,000. In other words there is a doubling of the first home owners grant if you are buying your first home and a tripling of the grant if you are buying a newly constructed home. This is designed to support activity in the housing sector because the housing sector is critical to the overall performance of the economy. This measure is fantastic news for the people in the Territory, with the creation of three new suburbs in Palmerston in the near future as well as the suburb of Bellamack coming to life next year. The assistance will be huge for not only first home buyers purchasing a home but also the businesses associated with the housing industry. In fact, only last week it was reported in the news that the NT’s Housing Industry Association expects a recovery in new home approvals during the next few months—just the news my mates in the building game up in Darwin wanted to hear.

The fourth measure is that the government is going to provide $187 million to create an additional 56,000 new training places in 2008-09. This is great news for both employers and people wanting to get into the workforce. From now till the end of the financial year, the number of productivity training places will double from 57,000 to 113,000. As my son comes to the end of his school years, it is great that he will have opportunities to get some training. It means great opportunities for hundreds of small to medium sized businesses in Solomon which need a skilled labour workforce.

The fifth measure of the ESS brings forward the implementation of the government’s nation-building agenda. Bringing forward the priorities list for both the Building Australia Fund as well as the areas of education, health and hospital areas will bring greater employment opportunities and assistance in stimulating economic activity. Last week’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook showed just how important it was that the government acted decisively with the Economic Security Strategy. Recent figures make it very clear that our economy is crying out for a boost, and that will be provided through the ESS. At the time of the announcement of the ESS, the Leader of the Opposition had this to say:

Well we welcome the Government’s announcement today …

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Now this is also a very significant economic stimulus; a significant fiscal stimulus.

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But nonetheless we are not going to argue about the composition of the package or quibble about it. It has our support. It will provide a stimulus to the economy, that’s for certain. And above all it gives justice to Australia’s age pensioners in particular, who have been doing it especially tough.

He went on to say:

Well we support it. As I said, we’re not going to argue about the composition of the package.

He went on to say:

The bulk of the money of course has gone to pensioners and to families. So that’s where the bulk of the commitment has gone.

He also went on to say:

… we welcome the whole package. It has our support. We’re not going to, you know, go through it line by line and say if we were in government we would have done this rather than that. It has our support, it has our bipartisan support, but we are particularly pleased that the pensioner issue has been addressed and that pensioners, now the fact of the matter is the pensioners will get this extra money.

He was adamant. He was out there with the shadow Treasurer supporting it on 14 October. This is a very important stimulus. It is a very important package.

I put up a private member’s motion in the Main Committee on Monday night and there were some comments made by those opposite with regard to it, so I went looking around to see what other comments had been made. I was going to have a look in the Age, the Fin Review, the Australian or the Courier-Mail, but I decided just to look up the Liberal Party website because they have all the information there for you. Maybe those opposite should read some of their own leader’s press releases before they make outlandish statements like those that were made in the Main Committee on Monday night. Remember there is a bipartisan approach to this. But on Monday night, in debating my private member’s motion on the Economic Security Strategy, the member for Fadden said:

The fallout from the global economic crisis was seen as long ago as 2006, when $2 trillion of money was lent for residential mortgage backed securities.

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The coalition saw it coming. We warned, before the election, of the storm clouds gathering.

Yet, when talking about the international financial crisis, his leader said this in a press conference on Tuesday, 30 September, this year. This is on the Liberal Party website, so you can look it up if you want. He said:

These are very uncharted waters. There is nobody that would have predicted these events a year ago or even a few months ago.

He also said:

There is nothing about this; none of these events would have been forecast as recently as only a few months ago.

He went on to say:

… we’ve got new problems that could not have been foreseen as recently as only a month or a few months ago … So the problem, the global problem has become more and more serious and it’s important to recognise that.

Four times on the website he says there is nobody who would have predicted these events a year ago or even a few months ago. So maybe the member for Fadden, when he found out in 2006 and saw the storm clouds, should have given the now Leader of the Opposition a ring or spoken to the member for Higgins, because that was around the time that they were ignoring warnings from the Reserve Bank that there were problems on the horizon. The member for Fadden did not finish there on Monday night. He started his response to my private member’s motion by saying:

The question must be asked: what is this so-called Economic Security Strategy all about? Is it about helping Australia in the face of a global financial crisis? Is it about assisting struggling families? The member for Solomon’s motion would claim that it is both. The stark reality is that the government’s strategy has not adequately addressed either problem.

Yet the Leader of the Opposition said:

The bulk of the money of course has gone to pensioners and to families. So that’s where the bulk of the commitment has gone.

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Well we welcome the Government’s announcement today …

So, while the member for Fadden believes that it has not addressed any problems, the Leader of the Opposition tends to differ from what the member for Fadden is saying.

Then we have the member for Tangney, who made his contribution on Monday night as well. Let us remember what he said back on 20 October. The member for Tangney came in on the doors and said, ‘He hasn’t been doing too bad a job of it.’

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