David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The member opposite is so confused about these matters that he somehow thinks that this has something to do with family payments. I will come to the family payments in a minute, but I am talking about the childcare tax rebate. We increased the rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent for out-of-pocket expenses. In addition to that, in this budget we are now providing families with a greater capacity to access those benefits sooner and in a more timely fashion. Those are the sorts of things you do if you want to relieve some of these cost of living pressures on families.

The member opposite wanted to buy into the debate over family payments and the family tax benefit. I am sure that the member would be much more supportive of our proposition than the member for North Sydney has been. It is a proposition that seeks to provide parents with family tax benefit relief if they have teenage children who are continuing high school. This is one of the anachronisms of the system. It is antiquated, it is old fashioned and it reflects a time when not as many children went on to study in years 11 and 12. As we know, more and more young people are doing that and we encourage that because ultimately it will increase workforce participation, it will give those kids a better chance of getting a job and in the end they will end up with better income. We encourage this, but the pressure that families have been feeling has been acute. That is why we have been committed to delivering an increase in the funding that is available through the family tax benefit for parents with teenage kids. For some families that will mean an improvement of up to $4,000 a year. It is a significant improvement that will relieve those cost of living pressures.

You do not hear anything on that today from the opposition, but we did hear something on this point from the shadow Treasurer the other day when he came out and said it was 'curious.' As the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs indicated today, his position has become curiouser, curiouser and curiouser. Unfortunately, he is so confused about it that none of us know where he stands on this issue. I tell you what, this government will be proceeding with this reform. It will put more money in the pockets of families as they try to help their kids go on to higher studies. n addition to that, we have expanded the availability of the education tax refund and one of the eligible items will now be school uniforms. This will provide relief to families who are facing cost of living pressures. In addition to that, if you are an apprentice, you will have the benefit of obtaining higher bonuses and more access to mentoring. If you are a tradie or a small business, you will have access to the new instant write-off up to $5,000, and we have expanded that to include utes and other motor vehicles used by tradies and other small businesses. In addition to that, we have invested a considerable amount of money in schools for children with disabilities which will help families already stressed and under financial pressure because of all the pressures they face raising children with disabilities. They will now have access to more assistance in their schools as a result of these measures.

These are the very real and tangible things that were outlined in last night's budget by the government that will relieve some of those cost of living pressures. They build upon a record of a government that have delivered many improvements that have assisted with the cost of living pressures. We could mention the $46.7 million worth of tax cuts between 2008-09 and 2011-12, the $3 billion to establish the education tax refund, the $1.6 million that was the enhancement in the childcare tax rebate, not to mention our historic reforms to the pension—increasing the rate of the pension by $128 per fortnight for singles and $116 per fortnight for couples.

During this debate, we have had some discussion about interest rates and the opposition say that they believe the best thing you can do for families is to take pressure off interest rates. The best thing you can do to take pressure off interest rates is to not oppose the savings measures in this budget. The Leader of the Opposition has already indicated they will block the $3 billion. Every savings measure those opposite block will put more pressure on interest rates. They will put more cost-of-living pressures on the very people whom this government are determined to help. We will secure the passage of this budget through the parliament because it is important that we do that to deliver relief from cost-of-living pressures. Every time the opposition want to block the $3 billion worth of measures, they will be hurting the people who need relief.

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