Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

that is, the member for Mayo’s good friends the BCA—showed upward revisions in his last five budgets totalling around $87 billion. We can all continue to wonder where that money went.

Confronted with the magnitude of this global recession and its impact on the Australian economy, the Rudd government since the beginning of this recession and the impact of the global financial crisis around the world has acted decisively. That decisive action has come, effectively, in three stages. The first stage was the government’s Economic Security Strategy of October, which was rolled out in December 2008. That was effectively an adrenaline shot to the economy in order to prevent an immediate collapse in confidence and a resulting collapse in jobs. There were very clear targets there: household spending and residential construction. These were seen, on advice from the Treasury and other economic institutions, as being the best way to get money quickly into the economy and preserve jobs. All of the relevant figures show that that strategy worked.

Anecdotally, in my electorate, the largish department store just across from my office reported to me that they were up about 15 per cent over the Christmas period compared to the same period in 2007. One small business, which I spoke to when I asked them to do some work for me, reported that they had had their best summer period—December and January—in eight years. Hospitality venues were reporting the same thing to me. They were reporting very good takings in the food and beverage sections. Broadly, as I said, the macrofigures for the retail and housing sectors showed that the government’s strategy from October to December was spot on.

The second stage of the government’s response to this recession was the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. It was opposed by the coalition, to their shame. It is currently being rolled out all around the country in every electorate. There is no better way to disperse economic activity than by targeting schools. The $15 billion greatest school modernisation program in Australia’s history is being enjoyed by parents, teachers and students. It will be enjoyed by future parents and future students for many, many years to come. In spite of some pretty cynical media coverage in the days following the announcement of this plan, the response from teachers, principals, school councils and parents in my electorate has been overwhelmingly positive. The social and public housing aspects of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan will see the greatest injection of money and the greatest building program for public and social housing since World War II. This will be great for Australia as a whole. For a state like South Australia, which has a very proud history in this area, it will be a wonderful thing. The energy efficiency aspects of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan mean that 2.2 million homes will receive insulation and all of the economic and environmental benefits of that. Again, that has been very well received in my electorate.

Finally, for the second stage, the Jobs and Training Compact initially targets seven regions around Australia, including northern and western Adelaide in my electorate of Port Adelaide. We have already seen unemployment figures in the 12 months to February 2009—and I cannot remember the precise figures off the top of my head—rising from something like 5.7 or 5.8 per cent to about 8.2 or 8.3 per cent. The Prime Minister has recognised that our region of South Australia—northern and western Adelaide—needs some very immediate action to support and sustain it and to create jobs.

The third stage that I want to talk about briefly that is set out in this budget and in these bills is investing in Australia’s long-term economic infrastructure. Compare that to the way in which the previous Treasurer, the member for Higgins, frittered away the benefits of the mining boom and frittered away the upward revisions totalling about $87 billion in the last five budgets he handed down. At the end of his stewardship of Australia’s budget and Australia’s economy, the member for Higgins left Australia ranking somewhere around 20th out of 25 OECD nations in terms of infrastructure investment—a lack of activity that created bottlenecks in the Australian economy totalling around $8 billion to $10 billion of lost economic activity in Australia each year. Although it is hard to compare apples with apples, the best estimate you can make is that the infrastructure investment generated by the member for Higgins in the latter part of his stewardship of the Australian economy was around the same percentage of GDP as it was in the late 1980s. Given the economic good fortune that was enjoyed by Australia over the last decade, that was a shameful contribution to the long-term economic prosperity of our country.

There are a couple of other budget measures I want to talk about briefly—firstly, pensions. There are over 30,000 people in my electorate, whom I represent, who receive one form of pension or another. Early last year I conducted an eight-page survey of older people in my electorate and had 2,500 responses, so there were 20,000 pages of data that someone in my office analysed. They analysed very clearly and specifically the income and expenditure of the average pensioner in my electorate. As a result, I was able to make a pretty substantial submission, I think, to the Harmer review, calling for an increase in the base rate of the pension, and I am very, very pleased that even in a very tough budget this government has been able to find its way through to a significant increase in the single age pension in particular, because all of us who have looked at this know that the single age pension needed a significant boost. Although we would have liked to see more money going to couples, the more you give to couples, the more you have to give to singles if you are going to reach that benchmark of two-thirds of the couple rate being the single rate. So I think all of us realised that this one-off hit needed to have a bias in favour of singles, and I am glad to see it. Also, carers and those on the disability support pension, not just age pensioners, will be receiving this and more.

One aspect of this that I am particularly pleased about is related to a concern that I picked up from my surveys and in the course of last year—that, for pensioners in public housing, whatever increase came from the federal government would be lost, to the tune of 25 per cent, to state public housing authorities. I took that up with our state government in South Australia by writing to the Treasurer some weeks before the budget, foreshadowing the likelihood of a significant increase in the pension and asking that the state government quarantine that increase from the public housing rents. I am proud to say that the South Australian state government was the first state government to respond to the Prime Minister’s call for state governments not to take 25 per cent of the pension increases that are flowing from this budget, something that I think is very important.

I would also like to mention the provision for paid parental leave in this budget, which is long overdue in this country. This country remains one of only two OECD nations, the other being the United States of America, that does not have a statutory paid parental leave entitlement. Very quickly, what it means is that, although we rank 10th in the OECD in terms of female labour participation, we rank 23rd in the OECD for female participation at childbearing age.

All the experts and research show a very clear correlation between supporting female workers during their early stages of motherhood and labour participation. This is not only an important social reform; this is very important economic reform to improve labour participation. If we were able to reach the labour participation rate for female workers in Canada, as a percentage of total females, we would add an extra 200,000 workers of prime working age to Australia’s labour force, and that would be a very significant contribution to the Australian economy.

The last thing I will say in the very short time that remains is that I and the people in my electorate of Port Adelaide were very pleased to see budget support for the core elements of the defence white paper—in particular, confirmation that we will be building at least three air warfare destroyers over coming years in Port Adelaide. I hold out hope that we can make the case on an industry basis, but most importantly on an operational basis, for a fourth air warfare destroyer before the time comes for Port Adelaide’s expert workers to begin constructing the next generation of submarines. This was a tough budget but one I am very pleased to speak in support of.

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