Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The government's 2011 federal budget is an absolute shambles. There is no plan; there is no vision; there are no solutions. The Treasurer told us at the beginning of his budget speech that it was a Labor budget with Labor values. Budgets that are a shambles, without a plan and without a vision are Labor values. That is what Labor budgets are all about. If, perchance, the economic circumstances improve, Labor have no idea how to deal with it. When tough decisions need to be made to reduce government expenditure, they disguise the expenditure with the traditional Labor value, the traditional Labor way of fixing problems: new taxes.

We hear a lot about $22 billion worth of so-called savings in this budget, but a third of that amount is actually new taxes. And the great big new carbon tax is not to be seen or heard of in this budget. It is the tax we dare not speak of, except of course when it comes to funding the promotion campaign—the campaign for the tax that is not even mentioned in the budget.

We all know that this budget will do nothing to deal with the problems of struggling families. Labor's extra spending means greater pressure on interest rates and the near certainty of extra interest rate rises this year. Inflation is on the march, but the budget does nothing to halt that advance. And over everything is the threat of the carbon tax, which hangs like a sword over the heads of every family, every small business and every community across the nation. This Labor budget is all about a return to Labor's core values, with attacks on the people Labor always hate. Bring out the old class prejudices again—an assault on people who care for their own welfare by taking out private health insurance, one of Labor's pet hates, and on families who save up so that they can fund in advance their children's university fees, also on Labor's hit list. And what about single-income families, how they have been assaulted in this budget with removal of the dependent spouse rebate and the changes to the family tax benefits? All of this makes it more and more difficult for a family to decide that one of the parents will stay home to raise the children. Indeed, in future, under Labor's plan, the single-income family will become a thing of the past. It seems that is also one of Labor's core values.

The other thing about Labor budgets is all the overgrown rhetoric—grand statements, commitments about the biggest this, the biggest that, the largest programs of all kinds—but when you search through it all you find the numbers are not real. There is a $2.2 billion mental health strategy but they do not bother to mention the mental health programs they have axed to help fund it. They do not bother to mention that some of this is just restoring money they have taken away from programs like headspace. It is a big headline. That is what they are interested in. The absolute classic at this has always been the minister for infrastructure. When you read his press statements they always say 'the biggest road project of all times'. He has been well and truly caught out with his statements in relation to the Pacific Highway—a big banner headline 'More funding for the Pacific Highway':

The Gillard government is prepared to increase its investment in this road by $1 billion as a part of the 2011-12 budget.

Then he goes on to talk about what this extra funding will achieve. He makes it clear that there is an extra $1 billion in the budget for the Pacific Highway. He tried to defend himself in question time today when the member for Cowper quite rightly pointed out that this is not $1 billion extra for the Pacific Highway. This is not $1 billion worth of new money. He said the member for Cowper should go back and read budget paper No. 2, which has all the details about this item. Let us go to page 267 of budget paper No. 2 and remember that Minister Albanese is claiming he is providing $1 billion of extra money for the Pacific Highway. Page 267 says of this $1.02 billion:

Of the contribution, $700 million has been previously provisioned for in the budget.

So of the $1.02 billion, $700 million has been previously provisioned. It is not new money at all. It is re-announcing the same money which was announced previously. He did acknowledge that of the rest, $270 million was in fact money which has been taken off other projects in New South Wales. So $970 million at least of this money is not new money at all. The next thing he went on to say was that this money was going to deliver us a better Pacific Highway but if you read his press statement, he says:

This extra funding will complete necessary detailed planning for the remaining sections of the highway.

Detailed planning! It is not as though the minister went off on his own path on this one. That is also repeated in the budget document—a whole billion dollars spent on planning. Planning! They go even further by saying that if this money is matched by the New South Wales government further construction might be able to begin. They are waiting for the New South Wales government to put up the money to actually build the road. Yet the minister is trying to take credit for it all. However, he has caught himself out again because in 2009, when announcing the new N1 road network in Australia, he said that the Commonwealth would pick up 100 per cent of the cost of building the Pacific Highway. He was letting the New South Wales government off their traditional fifty-fifty share. It seems that the old destitute, hopeless Labor government in New South Wales was to be let off making any contributions, but the moment they have been relieved of office he expects the new incoming coalition government to pick up 50 per cent of the funding. So if there is going to be one centimetre of bitumen provided to the Pacific Highway in addition to what is planned as a result of this budget the minister says it has to be provided by New South Wales. This is the brave new investment. This is the new regional policy the Independents have been so willing to embrace. They are so quick to mouth the Labor rhetoric about new increased expenditure in the region.

The regions are going to get another 100 bureaucrats in the regional development department but they are not going to get any significant new expenditure. There is another announcement about $4.4 billion over 10 years but nearly all of that money is dependent upon there being a mining tax, and what a lose-lose situation this is for regional Australia. If you do not have a mining tax, you do not get any of the money that has been promised to the Independents and others for regional projects, but if you do get the mining tax, you lose the jobs, the investment and the initiative that is necessary in regional communities to make them grow. This is Labor's lose-lose regional development policy. What they offered to the Independents and what is in this budget is less than what would have been delivered by a coalition government had we been elected. It is less, but for the Independents Labor tries to bulk it up by bringing in the traditional funding out of other portfolios, concentrating it all in a regional bucket and making it into a large number. Is anyone suggesting that there would not have been hospital funding—extensions, construction—if this new bucket had not been created? Of course, regional areas would have got something of a share. Are you suggesting there would not have been money for regional roads if it were not for this new bucket? All that has happened is that the titles on projects have been changed but there is no serious new money available for regional communities.

What regional communities will have to pay is a heavier share of the burden, the changes to the fringe benefits tax, because country people have to travel further than people in the city. The tradies and the others who need their vehicles to travel around are now going to have the fringe benefits tax concessions cut. Those sorts of things will adversely affect regional areas.

Look at the agriculture budget. What a sad and sorry sight that is. While Minister Albanese has scores of pages of press releases, there are only two pages for the whole of the department of agriculture because there is nothing there. Another $32 billion has been taken away from it and there is no new expenditure on quarantine. This budget strategy has utterly failed. It has utterly failed regional Australians. It will deliver nothing for our communities. A government who can think nothing more than to introduce these costs is truly delivering on Labor values. (Time expired)

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