Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Hansard source

On the last occasion of the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2009-2010 and the cognate bill I referred to the confusion of the shadow finance spokesperson regarding millions, trillions and billions, but it has not stopped there. He has thought out loud that he might vote with the government with regard to private health insurance. But I am more concerned about the recent comments he made regarding foreign aid, where he criticised the government for allocating money towards offsetting global food prices, basically using the usual pathetic line: ‘Look after people at home.’

As Damien Kingsbury noted in the Age, the biggest food and health problem in this country is overeating. Unfortunately, Senator Joyce’s comments were not too timely. They came soon after events in Haiti and in the context of recent events in the Sudan, which culminated over the last year in the forced movement of 350,000 people and massive international appeals by Oxfam, which led to the British government, as part of its aid program, in the past month allocating $70 million in an aid package. Most of that money, $58 million, is to be used by UN agencies and NGOs to provide emergency water, sanitation, health care and shelter in the Sudan. The comments also came at a time when figures came out of India and the United States regarding the major contribution from the food sector to current inflationary pressures. For whatever reason, whether it is because of the way in which crops are now being used for biofuel, whether it is because of the purchase by India, China and other countries of huge tracts of land in Africa and other parts of the world that are too impoverished for their own food production or whether it is because of the ascent in fuel prices, they are major factors in food price movements and of course combined will, in a massive way, hurt people in the underdeveloped world, through malnutrition and the general standard of living. So his comments attacking assistance to avoid massive food price increases were very untimely, very inhumane but, unfortunately, typical of some loud thinking that the opposition leader had to slap down a few days later. It might actually be the thought within the opposition, but, of course, the Leader of the Opposition had to publicly move against him.

Regarding the budget and appropriations, I want to turn to another subject. In an otherwise impressive contribution, the member for Bradfield used part of his maiden speech in this parliament to put up an image of huge attacks on local government in northern Sydney and, more particularly, in his electorate. He said that the state government essentially was moving to bring in draconian legislation and that the increased controls over local government planning in Sydney were the worst thing since the reign of terror after the French Revolution or Nazi Germany. The state government in New South Wales is doing something about public housing; it is overdue and extremely necessary. The reality is that the federal government has put significant requirements upon the New South Wales government with regard to social housing. I note that in NCOSS News some of the restrictions that have been placed on the state government with regard to public housing—and, I should say, very necessary public housing—include the fact that 75 per cent of the projects must be completed by December, at least 50 per cent of the new dwellings are to be provided to homeless Australians or those at risk of such and a significant proportion of new housing is to be transferred to community housing providers. That overall program of $1.76 billion is, as I said, very necessary.

In Sydney we are seeing a wider problem—that is, the western, the south-western and the far western suburbs of Sydney are being asked to carry the full burden of density increases in our state. Some councils are cooperative with community responsibility, cooperative with the needs of the city in the long term, cooperative with the growing population of the city, while other councils, usually in very leafy suburbs, usually in suburbs with high-income workers, are essentially saying to the rest of the city, ‘Get stuffed.’ I, for one, strongly support the intervention by the federal government to ensure some equity in this matter. State opposition members in New South Wales are conducting a relentless campaign against public housing throughout the city. I live in an area that, in the 1960s, was essentially made up of public housing. Obviously, the nature of the tenants at that stage was very different from what it is today. We spent so much money on public housing at that stage that people who were low-income workers actually got into commission houses. But these days it is basically people on social welfare, people with very clear problems, single parents, disabled people and people with addictions. We have seen a campaign by opposition members in New South Wales of denigration, of attack, of marginalisation in opposing public housing ventures.

The reality is that, whilst it is easy to go to people in a street or a suburb and say, ‘Your house price is going to be repressed by these people living near you,’ if we are really talking about responsibility and countering social problems the worst thing that we can do is say that in large parts of Sydney there cannot be public housing, that it is not allowed, and basically push people into huge reservoirs that feed off each other’s social problems and poverty. That is the solution that the opposition are basically moving towards. They use the simplistic and materialistic pressure, which people will often find very appealing, of saying, ‘We won’t have higher densities of housing. Auburn, Granville, Parramatta, Penrith, Campbelltown and Liverpool should be basically forced to take 15- or 20-storey high buildings whilst these other councils, particularly in the northern suburbs, basically don’t pull their weight.’

However, the truth is that the measures are not as draconian as they speculate. In reality, whilst the chief executive of Housing New South Wales will have the ultimate say in these projects, local councils will have to be consulted as to immediate neighbours and be provided with the designs of these projects within 21 days. What we are seeing here is a very unfortunate campaign. It is against the public interest. It is a recipe, as I say, for reservations of poverty. It is a recipe for social problems. It is a recipe for increased incarceration of people from these areas. Basically, the opposition position is totally irresponsible.

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