Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too am very happy to support Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2008-2009 and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2008-2009. These bills appropriate approximately $2.2 billion, or about 2.7 per cent of the total annual appropriations. They support and enhance this government’s attempts to stimulate and sustain the Australian economy both now and in the future by both short-term and longer term stimuli, particularly in relation to social and economic infrastructure. The total additional appropriation being sought through additional estimates is $2.2 billion, which I have mentioned, of which $384 million is being sought in Appropriation Bill (No. 5). In effect, this is to support and secure the jobs and training of apprentices, trainees and adult workers who are vulnerable to redundancy during this economic downturn and also to provide assistance to workers who have recently been retrenched. The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations will be provided with funding for a range of measures. This is intended not only try to support those who are unfortunate enough to be made redundant, whether they be apprentices or indeed full-time employees, but also to try to invest in the maintenance of the necessary skills that will be required when we come out of this economic downturn. That is a very important part of preparing for our future.

As I have mentioned, some of the funding will provide for a range of measures, including an additional $43.7 million to provide for an increase in the commencements and completion claims under the Australian apprenticeship system, which provides financial support for employers and their apprentices. This is a very important component of the funding. An additional $38.8 million will be provided to assist apprentices and trainees to return to the workforce and maintain their training. Employers and training organisations will also be encouraged to retain apprentices and trainees through an additional payment provided on completion of training. So this is an added incentive, where a disincentive for an employer to put off an apprentice or a trainee may exist because of the economic downturn, for instance. It is an additional incentive to try to retain them so that they can complete their training.

An additional $43 million will be provided to keep the 241 ABC Learning Centres open until 31 March 2009, and that date is fast looming. I congratulate this government and the minister for taking the steps to at least provide the continuation of these important services, not just for the families who have been seriously affected by this highly unregulated example of an industry provider but also for the jobs of those people who were involved with those ABC centres, including one located in Devonport, in my own electorate of Braddon. The receiver has assessed these centres to be unviable under the ABC Learning business model.

An additional $36.8 million will be provided to ensure any Australian worker made redundant will receive immediate and personalised assistance to help them get back into the workforce. Rather than having to wait at least three months to receive intensive customised assistance, all newly redundant workers will be entitled to receive this support immediately to try and help them through a very difficult period or seek new skills and, hopefully, find new employment. This is a very important contribution towards helping with that.

There is an additional $70 million to meet an anticipated increase in expenditure against the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme. I understand the scheme assists employees who have lost their employment due to the liquidation or bankruptcy of their employer and who are owed certain employee entitlements. The scheme will require this additional amount before May 2009.

They are some of the appropriations in relation to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, and there are other major provisions of funding in relation to transport, regional development and local government which I will not go into here, as well as in relation to the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Appropriation Bill (No. 6) has an appropriation amount of $1.83 billion. Under this package, the government proposes to bring forward $711 million to invest in building better roads. The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government will be provided with $392 million in 2008-09 for payment to the state and territory and local governments to accelerate the commencement of a number of important projects on the national network and other strategic roads. One of these is the Brighton bypass, which straddles the electorates of Franklin and Lyons, on the Midland Highway, so Tasmania will benefit from these appropriations.

These appropriations are part and parcel of appropriations designed to sustain and stimulate our economy. Nobody doubts that our economy is under great stress, even more so when you humanise and localise that into families and individuals who are facing the stress of the economic downturn, and the businesses that employ them. They are part and parcel of a long-term strategy to try and deal with this economic downturn—a downturn that many people denied we could see happening, one being the current Leader of the Opposition, who then claimed that we should have known about it anyway. Of course, his inability to craft the architecture for an economic security strategy for the opposition’s has left them divided on this issue. At least we have tried to get on with the task, warts and all. We do not claim to have a foolproof way of dealing with this unprecedented economic downturn, certainly in the memories of most people in this House. At least it is an attempt to strategically work our way through the difficulties that we face.

We must remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that worldwide the crisis has caused more than 30 banks to collapse or be bailed out and major economies like those of the US, the UK, Germany and Japan to fall into recession. It has caused unemployment to rise in practically every country—unfortunately, in many countries it has risen higher than in our own country. We hope that some of the stimulus packages that other countries are setting out will, like our own, bring some kind of a halt to these figures. We know that Australia is not immune and that the situation may well get worse before it gets better. That is not talking the economy down; that is a fact, and we have got to deal with that, as this government has sought to do.

Six out of 10 of our trading partners are now in recession. Growth in China and Japan—our two largest export markets—has slowed dramatically and in December China recorded its slowest growth in seven years. I was heartened recently to see that China is embarking on a massive stimulus package or series of packages of its own. Japan had its largest contraction since the 1974 oil shock and the Japanese economy has shrunk by 4.6 per cent over the year. That is a massive reduction. These are our leading trading partners. That has to affect our economy and unfortunately it has.

Some time ago we set out to protect our financial system and tackle some of these issues. In order to avoid the collapse of banks that we saw falling like ninepins overseas and the loss of thousands of jobs, we moved quickly to guarantee bank deposit accounts and the term funding of our banks, building societies and credit unions in an effort to maintain the stability of our financial system and to protect people’s savings. We also set up the Australian Business Investment Partnership with the Australian banks. The purpose of this partnership was to provide credit to commercial property projects which, due to the financial crisis, would have been forced to retrench thousands of employees. These were attempts to maintain what is and what was on the drawing board so that employment could be sustained.

In relation to the guaranteed bank deposit accounts it is disturbing to hear that a bank like the ANZ is prepared to offshore 500 jobs to India at this time.

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