Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Net debt is expected to peak at 8.9 per cent of GDP in 2011-12. That, as I said, is less than one-tenth of the average net debt of major advanced economies, which is some 92.9 per cent of GDP. We will return to surplus light years ahead of major advanced economies.

Let us look at expenditure: through MYEFO we delivered a further $11.5 billion in new savings through spending cuts, building further on the $100 billion of savings across four budgets. Again, our record of fiscal discipline is there to be seen and has been endorsed by the international community. Our discipline has seen us get AAA credit ratings from all three global ratings agencies. That was never achieved by those opposite. They would have loved to have got it, but they never achieved it.

The IMF, the RBA and the global ratings agencies continue to back the strength of our position, that we will be getting back to surplus in 2012-13. Our fiscal settings have been endorsed by the IMF. Jorg Decressin, of the IMF, told ABC Radio National: 'where you have these strong investment plans in the pipeline, where the growth prospects are still quite good, this strikes me as appropriate.' That is the result of our being able to navigate our way through the worst economic circumstances in 75 years. We have seen jobs grow at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world, our overall growth rate is fantastic, we have bottled inflation and we have got net debt lower. We see the benefits.

What does that mean for my neck of the woods? Look at the types of things we have been able to achieve for my community in the course of the last few years. In my electorate unemployment is still stubbornly high and has been for years. There are a number of reasons for that: there are students who leave school way earlier than they should. They have decided that they will not go to university and so drop out of school. They get a job quickly, but are among the first to suffer whenever there are economic contractions. We are trying to build in students a personal bank of skills and we are doing that in a number of ways. I have been proud to see a number of trade training centres open up in my neck of the woods. Trade training centres open up education pathways for students who are necessarily interested in staying longer at school and who might otherwise have placed themselves in a vulnerable position for the future.

Earlier this year, we announced the investment of $1 million into a new trade training centre in Mount Druitt for Chifley College Senior Campus. This is part of an overall $2.5 billion program to help build schools and upgrade trade training facilities and comes on top of the $15 million spent in the Chifley electorate alone on a trade training centre for Doonside and Evans high schools, which, I was pleased to see, was opened by the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer. A trade training centre was opened last year at Tyndale Christian school. Loyola Senior High School, in Mount Druitt, has always had a strong tradition of providing students who do not want to go on to university with opportunities to learn a trade. The trade training centre at the school, which I toured recently, and which the member for Kingsford Smith came out and saw, is very close to being opened. It will include an automotive centre and cater for electrical apprenticeships, hospitality and hairdressing.

These centres match skills that are required in the local area, as advised, for example, by industry groups such as the National Electrical Contractors Association. These groups are working hand in glove with schools such as Loyola to make sure that we have schools that can train people up for jobs that are waiting for them. You cannot do that if your budget finances are not in order. You cannot do it if your values do not look at what will best help people on the ground, particularly in Western Sydney. That is the case whether it be through building trade training centres or, for example, setting up homes for vulnerable Australians who live in my area.

We have built 259 new homes under the Social Housing Initiative; they are providing safe and secure accommodation for my community's most vulnerable people. These are people who sleep in cars, with friends or with family. Over the course of the last few years we have been able to build new homes for these vulnerable people. We have also ensured that about 30,000 people in my electorate who earn under $37,000 a year will pay no tax on superannuation. That will help hardworking people such as mums who might be working part time, contract cleaners, shop assistants, childcare workers, hairdressers and aged-care and disability workers. All these people on low incomes, because of the low-income superannuation contribution, will not pay tax on their superannuation. If they currently pay up to $500 a year in tax, they will save more for their retirement. Again, these are good things that are a result of the financial management and fiscal discipline that we have demonstrated.

On top of that, we have been able to see 1,000 former students take up places in 2012 to work as GP registrars in hospitals and doctors' surgeries in urban and rural areas across the country. The Minister for Health visited the Chifley electorate recently to announce that initiative. In an area where we experience workplace shortages, where people sometimes have to wait an hour to see a GP, we are bringing on line more doctors to make sure that we can cut those times and make sure that people can get to see a doctor. That is on top of the $20 million we have invested in Blacktown hospital, which services the electorates of Greenway, Chifley and Parramatta, to make sure we train in Western Sydney doctors who will stay in Western Sydney. You cannot do that if you do not have the fiscal discipline necessary to ensure that you can deliver those types of programs.

Again, on our side of the fence we have demonstrated the ability to manage our finances and get triple-A credit ratings from all three major agencies. We have been able to achieve higher growth, lower unemployment and inflation contained. We are in a minority government and the pressure is on for both sides to demonstrate their ability to manage finances. I have outlined already what we have been able to do. Those opposite do not have a proud record in demonstrating how they would manage their finances.

You may recall that yesterday I referred to the fact that, when the razor gang of those opposite were meeting in August of last year, a figure had to be put to them for the savings they would need to find. The figure was different for all of the principals in that meeting. That was deliberately done, not in the interests of economic policy but in the interests of finding out who, on their side of the fence, was leaking. A figure of $70 billion was deliberately put out there. As a result of that, we have a situation where those opposite—who could not even last year find $6 billion in savings because they claimed we did not need a flood levy in response to the worst natural disasters that Queensland had faced in living memory—were unable to find savings of their own, but now think that they can find $70 billion in savings.

As I pointed out yesterday, they have been working very hard and long, late at night, to try and find those savings. The member for Goldstein, I think, proudly announced—and I will stand corrected if I am wrong—that in terms of trying to find that $70 billion in savings they had reached for what always gets reached for when you are trying to demonstrate you have been able to discover some sort of waste or mismanagement: they found $50 million in government consultancies. Fantastic work that! $50 million in consultancies—

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