Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You can always learn something from listening to the member for Kennedy. I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and the two cognate bills. These bills effectively put into place the Rudd government’s 2009-10 budget. We live in extraordinary times. We are faced with the duel crises of an economy that has collapsed under the weight of uncontrolled spending and growth and an environment that is under threat because of the same uncontrolled consumption and growth. Many analysts warned that the global economic crisis we are faced with was inevitable and predictable, yet those warnings were ignored, just as many, including several members of the coalition, are today still ignoring the warning signs relating to the environment. To dismiss the overwhelming body of scientific advice on climate change as misinformed scaremongering, as some opposition members are doing, is as bewildering as it is irresponsible. Sadly, the consequences of serious mismanagement of either the environment or the economy can be devastating, as we are now seeing with the collapse of the world economy. Likewise, the economic cost of environmental disasters such as the Victorian bushfires, the Northern Australian floods and the mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin is a stark warning of the magnitude of the economic fallout of associated with environmental disasters.

The combination of a global economic downturn and climate change make these truly extraordinary times. There is no precedent quite the same that one can look to for guidance. Extraordinary times require extraordinary responses from governments. But with extraordinary challenges also comes opportunity—the opportunity to set new directions and to rebuild, restructure and regenerate the nation. The Rudd government is seizing that opportunity and acting decisively with a budget that supports today’s jobs whilst investing in nation-building infrastructure for tomorrow, nation-building infrastructure that communities have in many cases waited decades for and had held little hope of ever getting.

Bringing forward nation-building infrastructure spending is the right thing to do for both today’s generation and for future generations. Bringing projects forward creates jobs now whilst saving future generations tens of millions of dollars because the infrastructure is built at today’s prices. It makes financial sense. In addition, that infrastructure will lift Australia’s productive capacity, strengthen Australia’s economy and ensure that Australia will emerge from the economic downturn a much stronger and more prosperous nation.

It is my view that it is not unreasonable to spread the cost of long-lasting infrastructure across the generations who will benefit from it. The Rudd government’s economic stimulus strategy combined with the 2009-10 budget provide the right framework to cushion the Australian economy from the global economic recession and to build tomorrow’s infrastructure at today’s prices. There is ample evidence that the Rudd government’s strategy is working. That is why the opposition is running a desperate, dishonest, debt campaign and talking down the economy. Let me refer to some of the evidence which indicates that the Rudd government strategy is actually working. I refer to a story in the Adelaide Advertiser of 1 May this year. It said:

Business confidence has rebounded sharply into positive territory as South Australian corporate leaders sense early signs of an economic recovery, a BankSA survey has found.

…            …            …

BankSA’s State Monitor, conducted three times a year, surveys 300 consumers and 300 business owners or managers.

…            …            …

The business index rose to 113.4—up 17.1 index points—in May following five successive falls to an eight-year low of 96.3 in February.

That story followed a previous story only about a week earlier, on 26 April, which said that cafe spending in Adelaide had increased by 3.8 per cent compared with the same period last year. The cafe sector in Adelaide generated $100 million worth of spending for the month of March. There are a lot of people employed in cafes not only in South Australia but around the country.

I will add some national figures to that. We heard only yesterday that the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed that the current account deficit fell by 27 per cent or $1.7 billion in the March quarter. That was one of the most significant falls that we have seen for a long time. We also saw yesterday that the number of homes approved for construction in April was just over five per cent higher than the previous month. And we saw retail figures which are now running at about 4.8 per cent higher than they were in November. These figures tell a very clear story, and that is the story that this government’s strategy is actually working.

Let me highlight what some of the government measures are which form part of this strategy. I would remind the House that 70 per cent of the stimulus package that the Rudd government has put out is on infrastructure spending. We have already seen that repairs and maintenance on more than 1,300 houses nationwide have been completed. Work is underway on 183 of the 802 houses for our defence personnel around the country. Twenty apprenticeships are being subsidised by defence housing. Of these 20 apprenticeship positions, five will be offered in Adelaide.

Every school in Australia has now been allocated between $50,000 and $200,000 for maintenance and repairs. Nationally this amounts to 13,172 projects in 9,490 schools, with total funding of $1.2 billion. Of that, South Australia has 1,171 projects in 788 schools and has received funding of $102 million. Under round 1 of the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program, early work has commenced on more than 300 sites around Australia. Construction work for 105 public primary schools has been allocated to builders in South Australia to begin site inspections.

Under the stimulus plan’s energy efficiency program, more than 20,000 homeowners have installed ceiling insulation and more than 20,000 homeowners have installed a solar hot water system. We have now seen 78,000 first home buyers assisted by the first home owners grant since it was boosted earlier this year.

These are real projects creating or supporting real jobs for real people. These are jobs that are appreciated by the people with whom I speak. These are projects that have lifted the morale of teachers in so many of the schools I have visited in recent months, that will make our roads safer, that will add to the nation’s housing stock and that will create hundreds of apprenticeships and training opportunities for Australians.

Let me summarise what some of this investment has meant for the seat of Makin, which I represent. There is a total of $52 million in funding for 102 school projects in Makin. There is $2.38 million in Black Spot funding and $6.4 million for community infrastructure spending. The four councils that have an interest in the Makin area have collectively been granted $3.64 million for community projects. An amount of $2.7 million was provided for the upgrade of the Waterworld swimming centre in the Tea Tree Gully Council area. There are 20,700 pensioners and people on disability support pensions who will benefit from the increase of $32 to the single pension and $10 for couples. Again, that was announced in the budget. In addition there are people who will benefit from the carer allowance and carer payments.

Finally in highlighting issues that affect the Makin electorate, $69 million was allocated to extend the O-Bahn busway into the Adelaide CBD. The O-Bahn was constructed almost 30 years ago, but it stopped short of the Adelaide CBD by a couple of kilometres. Why it was ever constructed to stop short of the CBD bewilders me; nevertheless, it does. It means that the last two kilometres, the most congested part of the journey, take almost as long for commuters as does the rest of the journey. The O-Bahn busway is effectively the major transport node between the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide and the CBD. It is a project that I have discussed with my counterparts in the state parliament on several occasions. It is a project that I certainly welcome funding form, and I know it will be welcomed by the tens of thousands of commuters who use it every week, because will make their travel times in and out of the city much shorter.

The Rudd government budget strategy is clear, responsible and strategic. Not surprisingly, it has widespread expert endorsement. On the contrary, what is the alternative budget framework from the alternative government, the coalition opposition? On Thursday 14 May the Leader of the Opposition, in his exclusive opportunity to articulate his alternative government strategy for securing Australia’s future, delivered 30 minutes of empty rhetoric criticising the Rudd government but offering the Australian people no alternative. Not once did he mention the coalition’s debt figure or how he would respond to the $210 billion revenue shortfall over the next four years. The breathtaking response of the opposition leader to the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression was to raise the price of cigarettes.

The parliament was extended and reconvened, at considerable cost to taxpayers, to provide the Leader of the Opposition an uninterrupted opportunity to tell the Australian people what he would do differently. He offered the Australian people nothing as an alternative. Noticeably, for an opposition running a fear campaign on debt, the bottom line to the opposition’s budget response is almost identical to that of the government. Where was the opposition leader’s honesty on the opposition’s debt figure?

In fact we got more honesty from the opposition shadow finance minister and the member for Warringah. The member for North Sydney, the opposition shadow finance spokesman, whom one would expect would know what the opposition’s debt figure should be, said that it would be around $25 billion less. The member for Warringah said it would be around $21 billion less. The reality is that when you analyse what was put as the alternative budget by the Leader of the Opposition, the bottom line debt figure of the opposition’s budget strategy is very close to that of the government’s.

This is a budget framed in the context of the global economic crisis that we are confronted with, framed in the context of the environmental issues that face this nation and framed in the context of the nation building that this country is well and truly overdue for—nation building that has been neglected for so long by the previous government. When we talk about debt, it is just as much a debt to leave infrastructure for future generations—whether it be hospitals, roads or schools that are absolutely run down—as it is to leave them with a debt in terms of a bottom line dollar figure. Both of them are debts and the reality is that it makes much more sense to provide that infrastructure right now. This is a budget that is responsible, balanced and appropriate for the times. I commend this budget to the House.

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