Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills. There is no doubt that this budget and the forward estimates contain very serious implications for the nation and the Australian people, particularly for enterprising, hardworking families and businesses in regional Australia, including those in my electorate of Forrest. What we have in real terms is a return to the same old historic Labor budgets of debt and deficit, but in proportions this country has never seen before. My constituents, like many other Australians, cannot understand why the government has driven such a reversal in our economy, given that the Labor government inherited the best economic conditions of any government in the history of federal politics. We have gone from a $22 billion surplus to $120 billion in new Labor government spending, $26 billion in increased taxes and a $32 billion deficit this year, equating to an incredible $50 billion turnaround. The deficit for 2009-10 is estimated to be $58 billion, with net debt to grow to $188 billion by 2012 and with interest payments of at least $8 billion a year.

This budget, in effect, contains $315,000 million of peak debt and deficit by 2015-16, all on the nation’s credit card. This supposedly temporary debt and deficit is all borrowed. I am very concerned that this peak debt figure will just keep growing. People in my electorate of Forrest know that this is $315 billion and it has to be paid back by hardworking families and businesses just like them. My constituents understand that the interest payments alone on these borrowings will ultimately mean that there will be less funding for core government services. They also understand that the eventual repayment of principal on interest will be made by our children and possibly grandchildren. We are all aware, however, that the $315 billion of debt and deficit excludes the $43 billion for the National Broadband Network, excludes the $28 billion for Ruddbank and excludes proposed additional defence spending. I have no doubt that the parliament and the Australian people are yet to be told the full extent of the Labor government’s debt and deficit.

The projected debt and deficit is also contingent upon the Labor government’s commitment to no new spending initiatives between now and 2017. This is difficult to accept, given the unparalleled new Labor government spending of $124 billion over the past 18 months. In spite of all this spending, the budget forecasts that over one million people will be unemployed in Australia by 2010-11. Unemployment stood at four per cent at the 2007 election. It will rise to 8.5 per cent in spite of the $10 billion December stimulus package that would, it was said, ‘create 75,000 jobs’ and the second $42 billion stimulus package that was supposed to support 200,000 jobs.

The budget delivered many hits to regional Australia, including to my electorate. My office has been inundated with calls regarding changes to the youth allowance, changes that discriminate against regional students, who have no alternative but to move to a capital city like Perth for their tertiary education. Legislative changes due to take effect in January seriously discriminate against regional students who are currently in their gap year. These are the motivated young people who are working part time to help fund their own education, students who have taken a gap year away from starting their university studies to qualify for the independent youth allowance and who are in the process of earning the required $19,000 under the existing rules. In some instances, both their own plans for study and the plans of their families are seriously compromised.

For these students to have to work virtually full-time for two years before they qualify for Youth Allowance in some instances will deny some of my south-west students a university education. They have certainly told me so in these emails. For many of my students, it is the youth allowance that is the difference between being able to study at university in Perth and not being able to study at university at all to achieve their career goals.

The Commonwealth accommodation scholarships of $4,500 each year assisted students to meet just some of the significant additional costs of living away from home. The substituted relocation allowance of $4,000 for the first year and $1,000 for the subsequent three years ignores ongoing additional costs of living away from home. Students in my electorate have no choice but to live away from home—the majority of courses are only available in universities in Perth. And Perth is anything from a 2½-hour to a four-hour drive away from parts of my electorate. South-west students do not have the option of a daily bus fare from a metropolitan suburb to their university.

I was really appalled that the Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, when questioned in the House of Representatives on this issue, either did not understand what this means to regional current gap year students or, worse, simply does not care what her Labor government has done to these same rural and regional students, which was clearly evident in the minister’s dismissive response.

From January 2010, to qualify for youth allowance students have to work for 18 months for 30 hours a week. How many regional students will be able to access university when one year is the university deferral period and very few courses offer a mid-year intake? And how many 30-hour a week jobs are there in small regional towns and rural areas for school leavers? This is an unreasonable expectation for rural students. It is unfair and retrospective. What we will see is fewer regional students attending university and, for those who are able to do so, a far greater sacrifice by themselves and their families compared to metropolitan students and families.

Natasha Carbone from Bunbury wrote to me and said:

I took this year off studying so that I would be able to earn the $19,532 that would allow me to qualify for Youth Allowance benefits. Now that the requirements for Youth Allowance have changed, it seems that I no longer qualify for these payments. For rural students such as myself, this change means re-evaluating not only our financial situations but also our decision as to whether to attend university at all.

One of the parents who contacted me, Jan Rigden from Bunbury, wrote:

This change is extremely prejudicial to students who graduated from school last year and deferred their studies, based on the current rules. At the moment students are only able to defer their place at university for one year, so many students will not be able to afford to go and will also lose their place, making it unlikely they will go the following year.

She asked me:

Please can you advocate for country students who have far greater need for living away from home income support and who are far more likely to return to rural areas to practice their chosen careers. This change discriminates significantly against rural students in particular and is likely to lead to a decrease in rural students studying at a tertiary level, which is already lower than our city counterparts.

And, yes, Jan, I will continue to advocate for students from the south-west. One parent actually asked me whether the government is further discriminating against those who will go on to become future doctors, lawyers and vets by lowering the age group for Youth Allowance eligibility from 25 to 22.

Where is the equity of opportunity in tertiary education for students from Forrest? For desperate students and their parents seeking clarification or information on this from the minister’s office, they were directed to the department of education’s phone number. After several hours of waiting, the call went through to the Centrelink call centre and the advice was that the government had only released very limited numbers of questions and answers and that specific answers and comments could not be provided. So what do these parents and students do between now and January 2010? This is a clear example of how the young people in my electorate are already paying for Labor’s reckless spending and cash handouts—funding sources that could have been used to retain support for regional students.

The coalition will propose a Senate inquiry into the Youth Allowance changes. Already there are twice as many metropolitan students attending university as country students. This number will rise with the impacts on current gap year students.

Great young regional people from my area, with very bright futures, have no choice but to reconsider their futures and some will now not be able to afford to go to university. I have spoken before in parliament about the additional costs and social challenges facing regional students who have to move to cities to attend university. I will continue to pressure the government on this issue for the families and students in Forrest.

My electorate will also suffer from the broken promises of the Prime Minister and Minister for Health and Ageing to retain the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate and Medicare safety net. There will be 1.7 million Australians immediately affected by these changes, facing either higher premium payments or higher tax payments through the Medicare levy.

It is also clear from repeated attacks on private health insurance that the Labor government is working towards one single major public health system. The government clearly does not understand the need for a strong robust private health system to maintain an equally strong public health system, quality service provision and choice for Australians. Western Australia has the highest rate of health cover in Australia and I have over 79,000 people with private health insurance in my electorate. Those who exit private health insurance will become a further burden on the public system and waiting lists will inevitably increase. Obstetric services, ultrasounds and reproductive technology and cataract surgery are all affected. Women charged an average fee for private obstetric care will pay $500 more for their treatment, with the proposed changes to the Medicare rebate.

Cutting the Medicare rebate for cataract surgery really proves that the Labor government values complex precision cataract surgery at half the cost of a pair of glasses. This ignores the inclusion of postoperative management. The longer term impacts of this decision may be that regional and remote communities will no longer receive ophthalmology visits or surgery. Visits will no longer be financially viable, and the most needy and disadvantaged communities will be the worst affected. Gap fees may increase to patients, and those who cannot afford the gap will be placed onto increasing public waiting lists. Not only is this an attack on the private health system it is also an attack on the viability of small- to medium-size health services businesses and enterprises in my regional electorate.

Senior Australians are very concerned about the changes to private health as well as reductions in the superannuation co-contribution scheme that encouraged many to continue working to fund their retirement. Their goal of financial self-sufficiency has simply been made much more difficult. A responsible government should be actively encouraging financial self-sufficiency, given our ageing population and the need for increased financial self-reliance. Effectively, these same hardworking self-reliant people are being punished for their enterprise to pay for Labor’s $124 billion dollar spending spree and cash handouts. Australians will work longer, retire later and have to live on less as a result of this budget. Pensioners have also been contacting my office regarding the utilities allowance being paid as part of the pension increase.

The attack on regional and rural Australia and electorates such as Forrest continued with the $908 million cut from the budget of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for next year. In spite of the strong agricultural export performance that kept Australia out of technical recession, this government clearly does not value our farming sector. Three hundred and twelve departmental jobs are to be cut from the highly respected Land and Water Australia, which will be abolished—removing funding from rural conservation and environmental research.

Given Australia’s drought and water issues, this is an exceptionally inconsistent, contradictory and incomprehensible decision; a further example of how regional Australia and small farming businesses are also paying for Labor’s reckless $124 billion spending spree over the past 18 months. Twelve million dollars will be cut from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation at a time when critical research is equally critical to sustainable farming. Our farmers, particularly our dairy farmers, are constantly expected to drive environmental and economic efficiencies without the subsidies introduced by the United States and the European Union. These decisions compromise improved efficiencies and sustainability.

A further indication that regional Australia and our farmers are paying for Labor’s reckless spending are the cuts to the quarantine and biosecurity budget: $35.8 million. The increased risk may come at a very high price to our highly competitive agricultural sector and quality clean food production systems. The Labor government has ignored the recommendations of the Beale review for increased spending on quarantine, again placing higher importance on cash handouts than on our food and biosecurity. There will be a 50 per cent cut in administering the Horticulture Code of Conduct, costing 300 jobs; the abolition of the 40 per cent rebate for exporters; and new taxes and charges on AQIS export inspection services, with full cost recovery applying from 1 July 2009. Farmers in regional Australia keep paying for the Labor government’s reckless spending and cash handouts.

In dollar terms the meat industry is the largest user of AQIS services. These additional costs will add up to $5 per head on cattle and up to 50c per head on sheep. Preliminary calculations by the Australian meat industry are that this represents increases of between $150,000 and $300,000 per registered export processor. What I do know is that these costs will be passed on to growers. The meat industry is a major regional employer in Australia.

Conversely, the government’s new $460 million overseas food and agriculture program increases foreign aid at the expense of our Australian agriculture sector. My electorate in Western Australia is a food bowl. Dairy, beef, fruit, vegetables, wine—you name it; we produce it. Add to this the $58 million cut from Customs and Border Protection. Seventy major ports with 1,300 local workers can check only five per cent of containers. The inspection of air and sea cargo for illicit drugs, illegal weapons and biosecurity threats will be compromised through 220 job losses and the funding cuts.

The assault on the regions continues with another broken election promise of a dedicated regional development program. Labor promised to expand the role of the area consultative committees; however area consultative committees have closed. The role has been passed to the states. The federal government will have no direct or specific responsibility for regional development and the funding has been cut by $15.1 million. The government’s Better Regions Program promise purported to support community, economic and environmental projects but was never opened to receive applications. The funding was used to deliver election promises made by Labor candidates in targeted 2007 electorates. These decisions for regional Australia, however, coincide with the creation of a better cities unit in Sydney—something that is not lost on regional Australians.

The Regional Strategic Roads program will be closed down and millions of dollars of regional road and rail funding will shift to urban areas. In parliament the Prime Minister said 35,000 projects will be funded; I call on the government to table the list. The government promised $22 billion in infrastructure spending, yet less than 22 per cent of alleged funds are provided for in the next two budgets. The member for Goldstein and infrastructure experts have identified a $60 billion black hole in the infrastructure funding needed to complete the projects announced by the government. Private sector investment will be needed. How many of this year’s 35,000 projects will actually be funded and delivered? Given that the government has committed not to increase government spending by more than two per cent for six years, I wonder what programs the government will cut.

Labor promised $4.7 billion for a national broadband network that would provide fibre services to 98 per cent of Australians and be rolled out by the end of 2008. Following a flawed $20 million taxpayer funded tender process, we now have a $43 billion proposal; however only $4.7 billion of that is contained in the budget. The now $54.2 billion NBN proposal will not deliver to towns with under 1,000 people. This effectively excludes many families and small businesses in my regional electorate. I have nearly 14,000 small businesses in Forrest. Small businesses drive competition, employ nearly half of Australia’s workforce and support regional economies, and they need access to high-speed internet and telecommunications services.

What the Australian people now have as a result of this budget is confirmation that Australia has the same old Labor government of debt and deficit. We now also know that Labor has no plan to pay off this debt and no plan for a return to surplus—just a superficial hope that in 13 years of ‘temporary’ debt and deficit the budget will somehow move back to surplus in 2022. Other analysts predict a debt of $300 billion will take at least 15 to 20 years to pay off, and $300 billion will not be the full extent of this government’s debt and deficit. The coalition knows just how hard it is to pay off Labor debt. It took 10 years to pay off the last $96 billion of Labor debt. This government has lost control of the nation’s finances, and Australians, particularly regional Australians like those in my electorate, are paying the price for the Rudd government’s reckless spending.

See this speech in context